Malaysians are shocked that the Inspector-General of Police, Tan Sri Musa Hassan is deadly serious with his ridiculous ploy to explain away the worsening crime index with a statistical sleight-of-hand by claiming that it is purely a problem of misperception by Malaysians, tourists and investors.
What is outrageous is that the Cabinet and the National Economic Council could be browbeaten so easily by the IGP on Tuesday to accept such a ridiculous ploy, to the extent that this has been adopted as the official policy position as to be publicly enunciated by the Deputy Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak two days ago.
Musa has claimed that figures show that Malaysia is a relatively safe country with 772 crimes for every 100,000 residents in the country. This ratio compares favourably with Hong Kong where there are 1,166 cases for every 100,000 residents; Japan 1,569 cases and Australia 4,470 cases.
Taken as a whole, the statistics showed that only Singapore with 704 cases per 100,000 residents had a safer environment.
It is a reflection of the intellectual inadequacy and poverty of the Cabinet Ministers and National Economic Council members that they could be so easily bamboozled by the IGP with suspect statistics and data.
The statistics given by the IGP to show that Malaysia is safer than Japan and Hong Kong are most misleading and unacceptable, as different definitions are used as to render a proper comparison quite useless.
What is needed is a proper comparison of the crime statistics for the three countries.
For instance, homicide per 100,000 population is 1.09 cases in Japan, 0.26 cases in Hong Kong but 2.12 in Malaysia; while rape per 100,000 population is 1.62 in Japan, 1.54 in Hong Kong while in Malaysia it is 11.47. For robbery per 100,000 population, it is 4.78 for Japan, 17.56 for Hong Kong while 90.49 for Malaysia.
With these shocking statistics about violent crimes for the three countries, how could the IGP be so irresponsible as to mislead the Cabinet and the National Economic Council to believe that Malaysia is safer than Japan and Hong Kong?
If the Cabinet Ministers and National Economic Council members can so easily buy the bluff of the IGP, I challenge them to walk the streets of Johore Bahru and Kuala Lumpur for a day without protection - when they would have no qualms about safety in walking the streets of Tokyo and Hong Kong without protection for a day!
I call on all BN and PR MPs to take a common stand in Parliament tomorrow to reject Musa Hassan’s ridiculous ploy to explain away the worsening crime index with a statistical sleight-of-hand by claiming that it is purely a problem of misperception and to demand full police accountability, responsibility and transparency for the galloping crime situation in the country where Malaysians, tourists and investors have lost their fundamental right to be free from crime and the fear of crime.
Lim Kit Siang
PEOPLE'S POWER
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