KUALA LUMPUR: A total of 1,307 people from the private sector were arrested for corruption offences between 2018 and 2022, according to a senior official of the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission.
The agency’s policy, planning and research director, Hafaz Nazar, said 357 people have since been charged in court.
Over the same period, MACC had been tipped off about 4,960 cases, and had opened 1,060 investigation papers.
Speaking at a forum on Corruption-Free Sustainable Development, Hafaz described the numbers involved as “alarming”.
He said corruption in the private and public sectors usually crop up when public procurements are involved. “There’s always a giver and a recipient, but we take this very seriously,” he said.
Hafaz said the MACC Act has been amended to allow the agency to go after commercial organisations instead of merely focussing on corrupt individuals.
Another speaker at the forum suggested that corruption in the private sector may stem from the lack of a level playing field in Malaysia’s economy.
Pushpan Murugiah, CEO of the Centre to Combat Corruption and Cronyism, said small and medium-sized enterprises now faced increasing competition from GLCs which he said were diverting from their “original lanes” into “other fields”.
Pushpan urged Putrajaya to ensure that GLCs stick to their original purpose so as not to affect the livelihood of those in the private sector. - FMT
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