Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission has become UMNO's tools

The Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) was supposed to be better than the disgraced Anti-Corruption Agency (ACA) when it took over at the start of the year.

After all, months before that former prime minister Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi said, “It is my fervent hope that by restructuring the ACA, its effectiveness, transparency and accountability will be considerably raised while public trust in its integrity and independence be quickly renewed.”

Today, we can call that statement and the MACC, "old whine in new bottle" as we did seven weeks after it was created when The Malaysian Insider declared MACC dead on arrival.

Because today, we can't find a reason to change our view. And we doubt many Malaysians can too.

For the biggest corruption allegation in the last few weeks is the palatial mansion of former Selangor Mentri Besar Datuk Seri Khir Toyo. Some call it Kraton Toyo, in reference to his Javanese roots, but the Balinese design bungalow would be termed a pura in the Isle of Gods — and in Bahasa Malaysia, double the pura would mean to pretend (pura-pura).

And that would be true of the MACC. They are pretending they haven't heard about it.

Their absolute silence on the matter is deafening. And the silence from Khir's party leaders such as prime minister and Umno president Datuk Seri Najib Razak is equally deafening.

Only the man who promoted Khir to lead a state, Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, has raised issues with the bungalow, saying it does appear to cost more than Khir's modest RM3.5million claim.

Of course, the MACC has also been silent on other allegations.

For example, its investigations into corruption, or money politics in Umno parlance, within Umno Youth. Victorious Khairy Jamaluddin's supporters were called in after the party elections but precious little has been heard since then.

Khir too has been smeared with such talk but he remains free to enjoy his mansion.

Yet, the MACC has been quick to investigate Umno's rivals.

It had earlier swooped on current Selangor Mentri Besar Tan Sri Khalid Ibrahim over claims of impropriety in using his private car and donating cows — earning the agency early in its life the moniker Malaysian Agency for Cars and Cows.

Truly, not much respect has been given to one of the most important agencies in the country.

But it has yet to earn it. This week, it went for several Pakatan Rakyat (PR) state lawmakers in Selangor ostensibly on a complaint of misappropriation of allocations for their constituents.

Yet, as the PR politicians themselves claim, MACC has not gone to probe lawmakers from Barisan Nasional who hastily spent all their allocations in a two-week period before the historic Election 2008 that toppled Barisan from Selangor.

So it still comes back to perception that there is one rule for the untouchables of Umno and another for the rest of the country.

That too is old whine in new bottle.

MI
16/07/09

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