MACC will not accept poison-pen letters - Azam Baki

PUTRAJAYA: The Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) will no longer accept poison-pen letters on cases of corruptions or abuse of power unless they are accompanied by complete and strong documents for investigation purposes.

MACC Chief Commissioner Datuk Seri Azam Baki said the agency had a special committee which met daily except Saturday and Sunday to evaluate information on cases.

He said MACC did not want any individual or quarter to be victimised after poison-pen letters were sent to them.

‘’As such, I wish to urge the public to furnish information on cases with the assurance that their identities are kept secret and protected under the Whistleblower Protection Act 2010,’’ he told Bernama in conjunction with the 53rd annivarsary of MACC today.

He said even if a poison-pen letter was sent to the MACC, it would scrutinise the letter first to determine its contents.

‘’For example, upon receiving a poison-pen letter containing complete documents, MACC will verify to determine the information can trusted and utilised before conducting any investigation on a case.

‘’We will not entertain a poison-pen letter which only make accusations. We will only respond if the letter contains a name or an e-mail,’’ he said.

Prior to this, Azam said MACC received many poison-pen letters but most of them did not contain strong grounds for investigations purposes.

When asked if MACC could take action against Members of Parliaments or State Assemblymen who jumped parties, he said, to date, MACC did not have any legal provision to bar politicians from doing so.

‘’It is outside the jurisdiction of MACC. It is up to the Members of Parliament to draw up a law (on party hopping) if there is a need to do so.

‘’The MACC will conduct investigations, if there are elements of corruptions (politicians being paid to jump party),’’ he said.

To date, Azam said there was no evidence of such cases taking place but there were instances of certain parties who had furnished information (on such cases) but declined to give their co-operation

Meanwhile, on whether former MACC Chief Commissioner Latheefa Koya had drawn up any policy when she was holding the post, Azam said she had never formulated any policy for the agency.

‘’The policies of MACC are still being continued as normal except that the administrative style differed.

‘’For example, the implementation of the MACC Strategic Plan ‪2017-2020‬ is still continued. The mission and vision stipulated by MACC had been continued by Latheefa and, currently, myself,’’ he said.

On behalf of MACC, Azam expressed appreciation to Latheefa, whom, despite working for a short period of time, had contributed substantially towards eradicating corruption.

-- BERNAMA