‘Incidents of greasing palms on the rise’

The Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission says the number of arrests made for bribery has increased by almost 300 percent.

PETALING JAYA: Malaysians are still prone to offering bribes. Last year alone, 430 people were nabbed for greasing the palms of police officers and others.

The Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) says this figure means that there was a 300 percent increase in arrests compared with the 108 arrests made in 2009.

MACC said this in its annual report which was tabled in Parliament earlier this week.

The 430 who were arrested for giving bribes were part of the total of 944 arrests.

A total of 380 people were arrested for receiving bribes and 84 were arrested for submitting false documents. One civil servant was detained for abuse of his position. Four were detained for money laundering and 45 were held for other offences.

Some 5,646 tip-offs and reports were received by the MACC in relation to corruption in 2010. However, only 1,220 cases fulfilled the criteria to be investigated. The three criteria to open investigation papers must have elements of corruption, able to follow up and traceable.

Other actions were taken on the remaining 4,446 cases which failed to fulfil the above criteria. There were either put on covert observation, intelligence or project papers were opened or they were recorded for profiling.

Four politicians and 293 civil servants were arrested in 2010 while 545 ordinary citizens were hauled up.

Good job

Meanwhile, a Parliamentary Select Committee (PSC) report on corruption said that MACC was doing a good job which saw a rise in its performance compared to 2009.

“Many of the operations conducted by MACC have given a positive impact to the government from an economic and national security perspective,” read the report.

It highlighted that Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak has yet to give an answer regarding its suggestion made in July this year for the MACC to have prosecution powers.

“The committee takes this matter seriously as prosecution powers is essential for MAC to investigate and prosecute as an independent body.”

It highlighted that some of the successful operations carried out were illegal logging, sand smuggling, and smuggling of diesel.

Four government officers were arrested in Kedah with relation to illegal logging. Twenty-two people were charged in court in relation to sand smuggling, which allegedly involved almost RM320 0000. Thirty-six people were detained for smuggling disel worth half-a-million ringgit.