New Rules On Political Financing To Transform Malaysia's Political Landscape - Pemandu

KUALA LUMPUR, March 2 (Bernama) -- New rules and regulations on political financing are meant to result in the eventual demise of alleged "kickback" culture, whereby individual politicians are perceived to use their political clout to ensure their favoured funders are awarded lucrative government contracts. Performance Management and Delivery Unit (Pemandu) chief executive officer Idris Jala, in a statement Thursday, said that two tiers of controls for all political parties to voluntarily adopt, beginning with Barisan Nasional component parties, would be introduced. The first tier of internal controls will be introduced by formulating a checklist of recommended actions for political parties to undertake to avoid the abuse of the funding process by party members. A second tier comprising external controls will also be set up to facilitate better detection, prevention and enforcement by identified agencies in combating the scourge of grand corruption. These include a new requirement that all federal and state government entities and statutory authorities cannot include any party member who is an office-bearer on their tender board, according to the statement issued by the the unit under the Prime Minister's Department. "It is absolutely imperative that sources of political funds are recorded and made available for public audit to ensure that the sources are neither corrupt nor potentially corrupting," Idris said. He said as Malaysia had set its sights on becoming a high-income nation in nine years' time, there was a great need for a system of checks and balances which promotes transparency and accountability to be in place. "As with all other initiatives under the Fighting Corruption National Key Result Area (NKRA) of the Government Transformation Programme (GTP), the ultimate aim is the transformation of Malaysia’s social, business and political landscapes to foster an ecosystem which promotes healthy and sustainable business and economic practices," he added. The statement alluded to Monday's announcement by Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak that a new measure would be introduced under the GTP to regulate political financing for all political parties to avoid politicians from abusing the party’s name to solicit or accept any contribution which is later misused for personal interests. It mentioned that all contributions intended for any political party, either at the federal or state level, would be channelled through official accounts of the party, and any donation made would be receipted to ensure transparency. The Pemandu statement asserted that the new political financing guidelines under the Corruption NKRA would transform the country's political landscape by making cloaked and personal political funding a thing of the past. It would pave the way for greater transparency and accountability among politicians and political parties, the unit said. Pemandu noted that the purpose of anti-corruption efforts in the area of political financing was not to curtail funding, but rather to ensure that parties were properly funded, and were accountable to overseeing bodies and the general public for their funding. It said the implementation of the new rules would ensure that monies meant for political parties could not be misused by individual politicians. Meanwhile, Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) chief commissioner Abu Kassim Mohamed said the political funding control initiative was identified as an important component of what had to be done to regain public confidence in the political process. "With regards to grand corruption, mechanisms need to be put in place at all levels to tackle the problem. The new political financing guidelines is part of the overall overhaul of the current system to result in improved accountability in the political funding process and increased transparency of funding for political parties," Abu Kassim said. He said the new initiative would make it easier for the MACC to identify and prosecute offenders who did not comply with the requirements on political funding. "We will integrate a seamless cooperative synergy between agencies like Bank Negara Malaysia, Inland Revenue Board and the Attorney-General’s Chambers to identify financial discrepancies and transactions which we can then investigate," he said. Pemandu noted that besides political funding, another initiative to achieve greater public transparency would be in the public engagement exercise to enable the sharing of views on proposed laws before they are enacted. Ravindran Devagunam, director of the Fighting Corruption NKRA, said current perceptions existed both locally and internationally that laws were enacted to protect the interests of select groups over others. "To refute this claim, we need to take the bull by the horns and create a more transparent administration that public and international perception requires," he said, adding that more details on the specific nature of the public engagement would be announced soon. -- BERNAMA