Pakatan to include police reform in its budget

Syed Jaymal Zahiid | July 31, 2012

PAS secretary-general Mustafa Ali says crime is on the rise and the BN government is in denial.

KUALA LUMPUR: Pakatan Rakyat said today it will include plans to reform the police force in its 2013 shadow budget following criticism that the authorities have failed to tackle rising crime.
PAS secretary-general Mustafa Ali said this will include the redeployment of more officers to combat street crimes by reallocating at least half of the existing numbers used for internal security and public order.
Currently as many as 32,656 from the 105,000 officers in the force are designated for the two categories while only 9,346 are slotted for crime investigations which he said is key to decreasing crime.
He also noted that the police’s budget allocation for crime investigation had only increased by 8% annually in the past two years while internal security and public order had an overall increase of 72% in the same period.
“We have been analysing how the police has been performing its duties and found that most of the resources are not channelled towards fighting crime despite the negative perception that it is not doing its best to combat rising crime,” he told reporters here.
The country is now locked in a raging debate on the recent spate of street crimes including high-profile kidnappings and robbery but the authorities claimed statistics showed otherwise and blamed the nationwide panic on media sensationalisim.
Pemandu claimed data showed crime had dropped by 10% from January to May this year, the same period the supposed “crime wave” took place.
Opposition leaders alleged the statistics do not reflect the ground reality and accused the government of embellishing figures to gloss the Najib administration’s crime fighting initiative.
While defending the statistics, Home Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said the authorities must not dismiss public fear and step up efforts to beef up security.
Crime was one of the key policies introduced by Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak when he took office in 2009, a crucial election push for the unelected premier.
This could be the reason behind Pakatan’s move to include its police reform proposals in its Budget which is likely to be unveiled just before Najib table his in Parliament on Sept 28.
Mustafa revealed that the project will be spearheaded by former police CID chief Fauzi Shaari who joined PAS in May.
PKR vice-president Nurul Izzah Anwar at the same press conference said the reform would also take into account “the needs of the force” pertaining to crime fighting.