MACC asks for legal loophole to be closed

KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 5 — Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) deputy chief commissioner (Operations) Datuk Mohd Shukri Abdul urged the government to plug the loophole in Section 23 of the MACC Act 2009 to enable a more effective fight against white-collar crime in the country.

As stated by the Parliamentary Select Committee (PSC) on Corruption, the current loophole in Section 23 has led to many “big fish getting away,” he said.

Mohd Shukri explained that under Section 23, a decision making officer who did not declare his interest in a particular project during council meetings is deemed to have committed an offence.

“The problem is the officer could either leave a meeting (after declaring the conflict of interest), which will be noted in the meeting’s minutes, or his name would not be in the meeting’s minutes at all because he was not present (when the decision was made),” he said.

“People are aware of this weakness in the law and that’s why they can evade getting caught,” he added, saying something needed to be done to prevent people making a mockery of it.

He said the PSC on Corruption had previously suggested that a new provision or law needed to be passed to prohibit any civil servant from awarding a project directly to their family members and that it must be done through tender. — Bernama