MACC chief due for retirement or extension?

 

On Friday, MACC chief Azam Baki turns 60.

He would have reached the mandatory retirement age and in an interview with the New Straits Times this week, he said: “It's been 39 years and I am due for retirement soon.”

The critical phrase is “due for retirement” but the prime minister has made no secret of wanting him to stay on. Not that there are no competent people to take over, but maybe, the PM wants him to continue to complete some unfinished business.

On March 28, Anwar Ibrahim told Parliament he decided against replacing Azam to break the convention that a change of guard in the agency was necessary when a new prime minister is appointed.

But Azam’s tenure has been clouded by allegations of a “conflict of interest” situation involving his ownership of corporate stock.

In December 2021, economist Edmund Terence Gomez quit as a member of the MACC’s Consultation and Corruption Prevention Panel citing the “nexus between business and law enforcement”.

He raised concerns about Azam’s alleged ownership of close to two million shares in a public listed company. When Gomez’s resignation letter was made public, the issue became a hot potato of sorts.

At a press conference, Azam claimed that he allowed his share trading account to be used by his brother. 

The Securities Commission (SC)subsequently clarified that the trades were executed by Azam himself and not by any third party.

Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim

Has he been cleared?

In a previous column, (March 29) I wrote: “It is no secret that Azam’s integrity came under severe questioning 16 months ago. While he may have ‘survived’, thanks to (previous prime minister) Ismail Sabri Yaacob who indirectly cleared him of wrongdoing by insisting the decision of the SC on Azam’s trading account should be accepted by all parties.”

To put it bluntly, the SC never cleared Azam. The reason for Ismail Sabri’s reason to name-drop is left to one’s imagination but then, Azam’s action breached government regulations on shareholdings.

(The Service Circular Number 3/2002 – Ownership and Declaration of Assets by Public Officials, prevents a public servant from owning more than RM100,000 worth of shares in any company.”)

Since then, there has been no expression of remorse or an apology for having misled millions of Malaysians, except that Azam sued journalist Lalitha Kunaratnam for defamation over two articles she wrote on the share scandal.

In his statement of claim, Azam said the articles were sensational, scandalous and offensive, and were written and republished with malicious intent to give a bad perception to readers that he was a corrupt civil servant or one who had abused his position as a senior MACC officer for his or his sibling’s interests.

I shall not comment lest I be cited for contempt, but Azam will have his day in court.

In colloquial language, he bikin tak tau and continued as if nothing had happened. And for good measure, the Public Services Department has yet to comment on the matter.

While the PM is shooting himself hoarse on corruption and the need to have people with integrity heading government departments, shouldn’t he compel a closure to this episode?

Now that his service is expected to be extended, shouldn’t he come clean and tell Malaysians the truth about those shares and how he came to acquire them?

Surely the PM cannot have a head of anti-corruption whose name has been soiled by his own actions and inaction.

Azam on the other hand cannot go around extolling the virtues of good governance when he himself is caught in the crosshairs of many good people who want an end to corruption. 

After all, you must practice what you preach. - Mkini

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R NADESWARAN is a veteran journalist who writes on bread-and-butter issues. Comments: citizen.nades22@gmail.com.

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of MMKtT.