A lot has been said about our police force. Being a retired police officer, I am compelled to clarify certain misunderstandings about the force. It is rather preposterous to compare our Royal Malaysian Police with other police forces.

The nature of duty of our police force is not the same as that of other police forces. Although the force is 74,000 strong, it consists the Police Field Force (or the PGA), Special Branch, Marine Police, Air Wing, FRU (Federal Reserve Unit), the technician in the Signals Branch and the Transport Branch, the administrative and clerical officers in the districts, state and federal (Bukit Aman) level, and the court staff including the prosecuting officers.

The number of personnel doing the real policing work is very minimal. The police in the US, UK and other developed countries are just doing policing work unlike ours.

So Kim Quek, you are wrong about our police force. While the population has increased, the number of police officers has remained the same. They are burdened with extra duties such as the war on pirated VCDs and illegal immigrants. And yet they are being paid peanuts.