PETALING JAYA: The Petaling Jaya City Council (MBPJ) has pledged to have stricter monitoring in place to prevent staff from being involved in corrupt practices, following the emergence of a video clip purportedly showing a MBPJ officer receiving money from a businessman.
The council will also be carrying out awareness programmes and special motivation courses in an effort to strengthen integrity among MBPJ staff, a spokesman for the local authority told FMT.
The spokesman noted that issues involving integrity could be better controlled if there was a more effective system in place.
“For the time being, the council is carrying out an internal investigation into the case and they have been called by the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC),” he added, confirming that two MBPJ enforcement officers are being investigated.
“However, the council has already taken administrative action by placing them to do internal work until investigations have been completed.”
This also comes on the back of allegations by two former MBPJ councillors that corrupt practices among the city council’s enforcement officers have been rife for a number of years.
Peter Chong, who was a councilman between 2014 and 2016, and Cynthia Gabriel, who served between 2009 and 2015, both referred to the corruption of enforcement officers as a “culture” that the council had been struggling to stamp out.
They also cited the video clip, which has gone viral on the internet, to prove their point. It came from a CCTV recording furnished by the owner of a food outlet in Paradigm Mall.
Selangor DAP secretary Ronnie Liu has since lodged a report with MACC.
Chong said the video evidence would make it easier to prove the corruption that had been “going on for a long time” among enforcement officers.
“But this time around, there is video evidence, which makes it easier to charge the culprits.”
He also said he would not accept the excuse that corrupt officers were trying to make up for their low wages.
“Their salary may be low, but this culture of bribery exists even among the more senior officers,” he told FMT.
Meanwhile, Cynthia, who heads the Center to Combat Corruption and Cronyism, spoke of the “entrenchment” of corruption among enforcement officers.
“When I was a councillor,” she added, “we did try to institute various mechanisms, to strengthen both internal audits and the reporting of wrongdoing which needed to have a proper whistleblower mechanism in place.
“It was incredibly daunting to make this turnaround a reality as past practices kept occurring.”
She called for “immediate and strong punitive action” against outright bribery.
“The video that has gone viral has helped show how it is done,” she told FMT.
She also called for the punishment of bribe-givers.
According to Liu, the businessman who furnished the CCTV recording had been threatened with a fine of RM1,000 for putting up an unauthorised bunting as part of his Hari Raya promotion but was apparently given the option of paying a bribe of several hundred ringgit.
Liu said several other business owners in the same mall were similarly approached by council officers and that some had paid the bribes. - FMT
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