KUALA LUMPUR: Over 2,000 investigation papers have been opened to probe complaints of corruption, abuse of power and misappropriation involving civil servants over the last five years, said Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Datuk Takiyuddin Hassan.
He said the investigations were between 2016 and September 2020.
“The Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) has been tasked to help ministries and government agencies examine their working systems and procedures to ensure there are no opportunities available which can lead to corruption,“ he said in reply to Datuk Abdullah Sani Abdul Hamid (PH-Kapar).
Abdullah Sani had asked for the latest statistics of corruption offences among civil servants and steps taken to curb the problem.
Takiyuddin said 139 government agencies have been in talks with MACC to implement the Corruption Risk Management (CRM) and 40 government agencies have done the same by having the Organisational Anti-Corruption Plan (OACP) in place.
He said each government agency must have tools such as the CRM and the Anti-Bribery Management System in place to fight corruption.
He said the government was committed to combat corruption, improve integrity and practise good governance.
He added a number of anti-corruption initiatives had been put in place by the government to tackle corruption.
“In an effort to ingrain the damage corruption can do, the government had included anti-corruption elements in the academic system and at public higher learning institutions.
“This is inline with the National Anti-Corruption Plan (NACP) initiative to introduce a compulsory university course at the undergraduate level that emphasises the aspect of human relations and its implications to the environment and its surroundings,“ he said.
Takiyuddin said under the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission Act 2009, it is clear that if any person or parties, be they operating solo or through a group, commits any corruption offences as stated under Section 16, would be deemed as committing an act of corruption.
“It does not matter if they are members of the public, civil servants or political leaders,“ he said.
He said this when answering a supplementary question on whether the government would expand the scope of monitoring among the top government leaders.
He said an amendment under Section 17A of the MACC Act stipulates a corporate liability clause where a commercial organisation can be considered guilty if any of its employees and associates commit corruption for the benefit of the organisation.
He said action can taken against heads of the company.
