Rahim Thamby Chik has urged that all decisions on the award of government projects be made public in order to uphold transparency and accountability promoted by Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi.

"If the cabinet could direct the International Trade and Industry Ministry to release the list of Approved Permits (APs) to the public, this should also be carried out with all ministries, state governments, local governments and government-linked companies," he told malaysiakini in an exclusive interview recently.

The first part of the interview, where the former Malacca chief minister was talking about the power struggle surrounding his resignation a decade ago was published yesterday.

"As an Umno supreme council member, I would like to see that transparency is practiced in all ministries. So whenever any decision is made on contracts given out, it should be made public. Other than information concerning defence or national security, I see no reason why other information should be kept secret," stressed Rahim who himself was cleared of corruption charges levelled against him in the past.

On money politics in Umno, he revealed that the party was looking at several proposals to contain the rampant corrupt practice more effectively.

Muhyiddin's proposal rejected

He said the party was studying two main proposals which is to increase the number of central delegates to attend the party assembly and to empower the disciplinary committee to receive complaints of money politics any time and not during the post-election period only.

"This means there is no time limit, a person who commits money politics could be referred to the party at any time," he said.

Rahim said the proposal to raise the number of central delegates from the current 2,500 to between 10,000 and 15,000 was a counter proposal to Umno vice-president Muhyiddin Yassin's proposal to hold the supreme council election at the divisional level.

According to him, a special forum attended by Umno state representatives was held in Putrajaya recently to discuss the matter. The forum rejected Muhyiddin's proposal.

Rahim, a former Umno Youth chief who was re-elected into the supreme council last year, attributed the better income of Malays and impatient party leaders to the spread of money politics in Umno.

On a petition by Umno veteran leaders led by former deputy president Ghafar Baba appealing for more democracy in the party's election, Rahim pointed out that Ghafar was among the leaders who approved the quota system for nominations to contest a party post.

On claims of money politics within Umno which he made at the party polls last year, he said he did not lodge any complaint with the party's disciplinary board as his allegations should be treated as a "political matter".

Commenting on Umno Youth deputy chief and the premier's son-in-law Khairy Jamaluddin, he described the rising political star as "an intellectual with his opinion on what should be done".

On criticisms that Khairy's rise in Umno was due to his relationship with the prime minister, Rahim said "for some reasons, he is fated to rise and if there are 1,000 people trying to pull him down, he will still rise".