Call for Parliamentary panel to tackle RM40b-RM60b yearly losses to graft

PETALING JAYA: There is an urgent need to have a Parliamentary Select Committee on Corruption and Abuses/Wastage of Public Funds with the revelation of RM40 billion to RM60 billion losses in Malaysia due to corruption every year, DAP veteran Lim Kit Siang said today.

According to #RasuahBusters team leader Datuk Hussamuddin Yaacub, based on the Global Financial Integrity Report 2017, Malaysia lost a whopping RM1.8 trillion between 2005 and 2014, partly due to corrupt practices that have resulted in illicit financial flows.

Hussamuddin said this figure could have been utilised for public welfare and five sets of Budget 2020 that would benefit the public.

He said former auditor-general Tan Sri Ambrin Buang had once concluded that corruption and mismanagement resulted in up to 30% of Malaysia’s public projects losing their value.

The country can save up to RM400 billion, if Malaysia pay 30% less for goods and services provided by contractors and vendors in the 12th Malaysia Plan, Hussamuddin added.

“These are gargantuan figures which warrant the formation of a parliamentary select committee on corruption and abuses and wastage of public funds before the end of the current Parliamentary session,” Lim said in a statement today.

“This is urgent and imperative especially as Malaysians are waiting in dread for the Transparency International (TI) Corruption Perception Index (CPI) 2021 early next year, where Malaysia is expected to ranked and scored poorly, reflecting a worsening of the anti-corruption effort in Malaysia in the past year.”

The Iskandar Puteri MP said Prime Minister Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob’s “Keluarga Malaysia” concept cannot based on a Malaysia which is regarded nationally and internationally as increasingly corrupt, which is also against the Rukun Negara nation-building principle of “courtesy and morality”.

“The Parliamentary Select Committee on Corruption and Abuses/Wastage of Public Funds should conduct an investigation into the Global Financial Integrity Reports as well as the poor ranking and scoring of Malaysia in the TI CPI reports.

“The time has come for Malaysians to demand greater transparency and accountability on the subject, especially with the superfluous appointment of advisers for the Prime Minister when he had Cabinet Ministers looking after the portfolio, the appointment of superfluous envoys for regions when there are ambassadors appointed to each country, and the appointment of ‘dud’ GLC appointments.

“For instance, is it true that the Prime Minister’s special envoy to the Middle East has been banned from Saudi Arabia and had never visited Saudi Arabia for the whole term of his appointment?

“If so, what kind of a special envoy to the Middle East is this?” he asked.