Low: For Chinese time is money

Minister in the Prime Minister's Department says the Chinese businessmen simply want things done fast in business and do not mind giving bribes to speed up the process.

KUALA LUMPUR: The Chinese are in businesses such as trading and manufacturing and are more prone to offer bribes to speed up the process, said Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Paul Low.

“There is a higher chance for the Chinese to engage in corruption as most of them are in business,” he told reporters after launching the third Annual National Procurement and Integrity Forum today.

Low said this when asked to comment on Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) deputy chief Sutinah Sutan who said the Chinese were the top offenders of corruption in the country.

He said for the Chinese time was important in business and it was their nature to want things to be speeded up.

“For them, it is beneficial to pay something to speed up the process,” he said.

He, however, cautioned that every businessman should realise that such practices were inappropriate.

“This is especially so since we are going to implement laws on the bribery giver as well. Thus, if they don’t have an anti-bribery system in their company, they will be caught,” he said.

Low, who was former president of anti-graft watchdog Transparency International Malaysia (TI-M), added that it was his duty to ensure the government was clean of corruption.

On Tuesday, Sutinah had reportedly told the Oriental Daily that the Chinese topped the chart for the number of suspects arrested for giving kickbacks over the past five years.

In 2012, Chinese made up 69.3% or 106 out of 153 suspects caught for giving kickbacks.

There was a slight drop to 64.5% in the first 11 months of 2013 with 60 Chinese suspects arrested for corruption out of 94 cases.

However the MACC in a statement today said Sutinah’s statement had been miscontrued by the media.