Malaysia Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) has come out in defense of its success rate in tackling graft.
It said it appeared to have a low rate of successful prosecution as some of the complaints received from the public had no corruption element.
In a statement, the MACC Deputy Commissioner (Operational) Datuk Mohd Shukri Abdull said the MACC had gone through a massive transformation in 2009 encompassing work culture to system and operational matters.
He said the transformation had seen a high number of cases brought to court and with a good conviction rate.
The MACC statement came as a reply to PKR’s Pandan MP Rafizi Ramli who said that MACC has a dismal record in combating corruption compared with its Hong Kong counterpart, the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC).
Rafizi made the observation after receiving a written reply from Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Datuk Paul Low on the agency’s record in fighting graft in 2011 in parliament yesterday.
Rafizi said based on statistics obtained from MACC's annual report in 2011, the commission only has a 20 percent hit rate when it comes to investigating complaints, which paled in comparison with ICAC's, which was 77 percent.
Responding to Rafizi’s comment, Mohd Shukri said in 2009, the number of cases brought to court stood at 45.4 percent and the number increased to 71 percent in 2010.
In 2012, the number of success of cases brought to court shot up to 85 percent.
Shukri said this showed that out of 10 people charged in court, nine were found guilty.
This despite the fact that only half of the information received from the public was related to corruption.
On the statistics of information received, Shukri said from January until June this year, MACC received 4,268 tip offs but only half related to corruption.
Last year saw 11, 765 information received and only 5,496 were investigated for the same reason.
In 2011 MACC received 13,325 information but again only 50 percent were investigated.
He said a survey by Merdeka Centre also showed that public confidence was at 31 percent in 2010 and 64 percent in another survey conducted by University Kebangsaan Malaysia last year.
Shukri also said MACC hoped to play a better role in combating corruption through the continuous transformation they made throughout the years.
They are also in the midst of amending of law provision for better execution in the future. - July 4, 2013.
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