MACC: Penang should not dilly-dally on anti corruption pledge

The Penang state government should not dilly-dally or blame anyone else for their reluctance to sign the anti-corruption pledge.

Chief Commissioner of the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) Datuk Dzulkfli Ahmad said the pledge is taken on a voluntary basis and the MACC had never sent a letter to anyone to sign it.

He added that all the other states took the pledge on a voluntary basis and he did not see what was so special about Penang that it had to be invited.

"It is up to the Penang government if it wants to take the pledge or not, I am ok with it, they do not have to dilly-dally over it," he said in a press conference at the oath signing ceremony by the Royal Malaysia Police held at the Police Training Centre here today.

He was commenting on claims by Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng that he had not been invited by the MACC to take the pledge.

Dzulkifli said the pledge was about integrity and leadership in the desire to be free of corruption and abuse of power.

"Any state which wants to take the pledge can contact the MACC to hold the programme, like the police force held today," he said.

He added the initiative to sign the pledge showed the commitment and seriousness of a state or organisation in being free of corruption and abuse of power.

"The MACC does not want to force because it is not good and does not show their seriousness, so it must be done voluntarily," he said.

If it was forced, the public would not be confident of the government body's will to fight corruption and abuse of power.

Commenting on the investigations into the Felda Investment Coorperation (FIC) on the purchase of a hotel in London, Dzulkifli said the MACC was still investigating the matter.

"Last Friday, the MACC detained two individuals for suspicion of manipulating the price of the hotel and there will be several more arrests in the near future," he said.

He added the two who were detained were the 45-year-old director of an asset management consultancy company and the 36-year-old head of the property unit of a postal services company

In a recent statement, the MACC said several people would be summoned to help in the investigations into FIC's purchase of the four-star RM330-million hotel in Kensington in 2014 after the MACC obtained new information about the case.

Initial investigations found that the FIC, being the investment arm of the Federal Land Development Authority set up in 2013, had allegedly bought the hotel at a much-higher price than the original, causing the FIC to lose millions of ringgit.

-- BERNAMA