KUALA LUMPUR – Malaysia should enact an anti-hopping law to overcome the country’s “political pandemic”, said Datuk Seri Akhbar Satar.
The Malaysia Association of Accredited Fraud Examiners president, in an interview on Astro Awani today, said party-hopping among MPs and assemblymen should not be allowed, as the practice undermines the government’s stability.
It also leads to corrupt practices, he said.
“When they hop from one party to another, it could also lead to the collapse of the ruling government, and they do this because they are paid to do so.”
Based on Transparency International’s (TI) Global Corruption Barometer 2020, lawmakers are among those most prone to graft, he said.
“If politicians are viewed as such, and as people of low standard and integrity, this reflects what the country is today, and future generations as well,” the former TI-Malaysia president said in the interview, aired in conjunction with World Anti-Corruption Day.
He said a law on political funding to check corruption among politicians that has been long debated should be enacted without delay.
“We have discovered that much of the contribution to political funds has gone into personal accounts. This is despicable and a breach of trust. We badly need a Political Funding Act.” – Bernama, December 9, 2020