Pua: Pemandu, where are the 'radical reforms'?

Petaling Jaya Utara MP Tony Pua has questioned the Performance Management and Delivery Unit’s (Pemandu) plan to implement "radical reforms" to combat corruption after an international survey revealed public dismay at Malaysia's anti-corruption efforts.

In a press statement today, while the DAP national publicity secretary (right) welcomed Pemandu's admission that what it has done is not enough to battle corruption, he pointed out that recent government's efforts are "hardly radical".

Yesterday Pemandu, a special unit under the Prime Minister’s Department, acknowledged the finding of the recently-released Transparency International's Global Corruption Barometer (GCB) that public confidence in the government’s efforts to fight corruption had plunged to 31 percent in 2012, down from 49 percent the previous year.

Pua said that the commitment by Pemandu's anti-corruption National Key Results Areas (NKRA) director Ravindran Devagunam that new measures to fight graft would be enforced, "do not go far enough to demonstrate an impact against corruption".

Ravindran yesterday revealed requirements for ministers' officers to also declare their assets, and that the auditor-general’s performance audit report would be tabled at every Parliament sitting instead of just once a year.

However, Pua questioned whether the increase in the frequency of report tabling would lead to any change, when the government has so far failed to punish the culprits exposed in previous reports.

He commented that the federal government's policy to declare the assets of ministers and their special officers to the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) is far behind Penang government's instruction for all state exco members to declare their assets to the public.

“What’s more, the MACC to date has been part of the corruption problem and not the solution.

"Hence until such time  as when the MACC is able to show its teeth and prove its worth, such assets disclosures to MACC will be viewed with disdain.”

Low ‘apologist’ for the Najib administration

Pua also refuted another Pemandu's argument that the appointment of former Transparency International-Malaysia chapter president Paul Low as Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department in-charge of governance and integrity shows the prime minister's commitment to fighting corruption.

He, instead, described Low (left) as an "apologist for the (Prime Minister) Najib (Abdul Razak’s) administration, justifying continuity and not change".

Low, Pua said, had rejected the Independent Police Complaints and Misconduct Commission (IPCMC), public declaration of assets by ministers, offering of the parliamentary public accounts committee chairmanship to the federal opposition and who supported the return of the Emergency Ordinance.

"If the above measures are the standards by which Pemandu deem as 'radical', then certainly Najib’s administration’s attempts to reduce corruption will fail miserably," he warned.

Pua called on the government to ensure open, competitive and transparent tenders for mega-privatisation contracts, public declaration of assets by ministers, giving teeth to regulatory agencies such as MACC and IPCMC, and promoting checks and balance within the parliamentary system.

War against graft going from 'bad to worse'