PUTRAJAYA – Malaysia needs to have a law on beneficial ownership on top of the existing regulations introduced by the Companies Commission of Malaysia to fight corruption, said Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) chief commissioner Datuk Seri Azam Baki.
Adding that it was time for Malaysia to have such a law, he said the MACC’s National Anti-Corruption Plan (NACP) 2019-2023 aims to put a new provision under the existing MACC Act 2009 to address issues of beneficiaries and beneficial ownership of public procurement.
Recalling his 37 years as an anti-corruption officer at the MACC’s joint training programme with the International Association of Anti-Corruption Authorities held virtually today, he said he had witnessed how corruption and bribery had evolved over the years.
Today, he said, the corrupt and criminals had changed their modus operandi by working as syndicates and laundering their ill-gotten gains through legally registered companies with proxies and nominees as fronts to hide their wealth.
He also shared how the MACC had recently busted a syndicate that managed to obtain numerous government contracts amounting to RM3.8 billion using nominees as fronts to mask the real owners.
As such, he reiterated the importance of training and human capital development for anti-corruption agencies.
“It is of no use to keep on investigating based on conventional approaches and not keeping up with the latest trends of investigation techniques and the modus operandi of corrupt persons,” he said. – Bernama, June 29, 2021
