THE Centre to Combat Corruption and Cronyism (C4 Centre) acknowledges the allocation in Budget 2021 for the National Anti-Corruption Plan (NACP) as an important continuation from the previous year, but reiterate calls for more transparency by the government in the use of the funds revealed during the tabling of Budget 2021 last Friday.
The move to ensure the NACP will proceed, with the recruitment of 100 Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) officers, is a right step towards further reducing corruption in Malaysia.
Having said that however, we assert that beefing up the number of personnel alone will not ensure its structural independence.
There needs to be more transparency in the utilisation of funds by the government, especially when it comes to tabling the national budget.
One pertinent example is the government’s reliance on foundations or “yayasan”. This is notable in the procurement of new laptops for school children, which will see government-linked companies participating in a pilot project to provide 150,000 students from 150 schools with laptops, with the project supervised by Khazanah Nasional Bhd-linked foundation Yayasan Hasanah.
What is the purpose of having a foundation oversee this project, when the Education Ministry would be more knowledgeable about which schools would need the laptops, and be able to disburse the laptops accordingly? Why so many layers?
Furthermore, the annual returns are limited to the members of the foundation, and are not publicly available for review. Hence, it is impossible to know how much of these allocations would actually be used for charitable work.
Another point of concern here is whether or not this procurement will go through an open tender process. Without the open tender, the possibility of abuse remains inherent that funds meant for students will instead be siphoned, or that the tender will go to a company that may not be the best suited for the task.
Examples of this include how a number of companies were given contracts to provide equipment to the government to combat Covid-19, companies which had no prior experience in fabricating such equipment, but were instead allegedly linked to high-ranking officials.
Another area where more transparency in the tender process is needed would be the allocation of development expenditure in Budget 2021, which comes up to RM69 billion, a full RM13 billion higher than Budget 2020’s RM56 billion.
There needs to be clarity and transparency when it comes to national infrastructure projects, with the assurance that the projects are going to companies that have good track records in similar large-scale projects, or that have proven they are capable of undertaking infrastructure development contracts. Budget transparency would go a long way toward building public confidence.
It is clear that there remains a need for a visible and transparent money and audit trail, especially when it comes to matters concerning the money of the rakyat. Being able to provide this would increase the trust of the people towards the government of the day, while hiding the trail would cast shadows of doubt over the reigning administration.
C4 Centre strongly urges the Perikatan Nasional administration, the first in Malaysia coming through in an unelected manner, that it must be fully accountable, not only for the allocation of national funds, but also the process of utilising them when implementing the national budget. – The Vibes, November 8, 2020
Centre to Combat Corruption & Cronyism is committed to upholding the principles of good governance
