PM denies interfering with MACC after Bersatu accounts frozen

Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim has dismissed claims that the government is using the MACC as a political tool against Bersatu.

Speaking at a press conference today, he stressed that the anti-graft body is independent in its operations.

“It is irresponsible for party leaders in the opposition party, that is being investigated, to accuse the unity government of interfering (in the MACC’s investigation),” he said.

Yesterday, Bersatu secretary-general Hamzah Zainudin decried the current administration for allegedly using a government agency as a tool to “kill” the party’s credibility as well as that of Perikatan Nasional.

This comes after Bersatu’s bank accounts were frozen to facilitate investigations under the Anti-Money Laundering and Anti-Terrorism Financing Act.

MACC chief commissioner Azam Baki on Tuesday confirmed the investigation into Bersatu, just two days after the party declared its 2020 and 2021 accounts in an attempt to counter allegations of corruption.

Meanwhile, Anwar said there were two factors that led to the MACC investigating Bersatu.

The first, he said, was that reports were made to the police and MACC on Bersatu’s usage of funds.

High expenditures

Secondly, when carrying out his duties as finance minister, he discovered projects involving high expenditures that were carried out without a tender process.

"Projects such as Jana Wibawa, which was under the Covid-19 movement control order, as well as flood mitigation projects. I found that the costs were too high.

"I revealed the information from the Finance Ministry (to the MACC). What the MACC did was not subject to my views. It carried out its own investigations," said Anwar.

Anwar added that the MACC has discovered that Bersatu had more than RM300 million in its accounts.

He said if Bersatu leaders were as clean as they claimed to be, they should be able to explain to investigating officers how they were able to collate such a large sum of money in their accounts in such a short amount of time.

Anwar insisted throughout the press conference that the current administration was not involved in the MACC's operations.

However, he appealed for the graft body to be more proactive and efficient.

"This is because the thrust of this administration has always been good governance and getting rid of corruption and abuse of power," he said. - Mkini