Charge civil servants and politicians who cause losses, says TI-M

PETALING JAYA: The move by the Governance, Integrity and Anti-Corruption Centre (GIACC) to introduce a new law that will impose criminal charges against civil servants who cause substantial financial losses to the government has received the support of Transparency International Malaysia (TI-M).
However, the proposed Act should be widened to include more provisions covering politicians.
It should also ratify and overcome weaknesses of this kind of law, its president, Datuk Akhbar Satar (pix) said.
He said the proposed Act would help to check cases when the government incurred losses due to negligence, non-compliance with requirements or procedures in government departments and agencies.
"The act will also be an alternative to the other existing laws to prosecute civil servants for misconduct and hold them responsible for the losses to public coffers they might have caused," Akhbar said in a statement today.
"However, any effort or laws to address misconduct which results in financial losses of tax payers' money should not only apply to civil servants but need to include against politicians or persons in elected positions in cases where orders or instructions comes."
Akhbar said any proposed law should apply fairly to everyone involved in the decision-making process and that includes politicians.
"Very often the civil servants are actually pawns in a game being played by the bigger fish. In those cases such persons should also be brought to book especially if they are the mastermind in the whole corrupt transaction," he said.