DAP: Vow to make M’sia graft-free merely lip service
KUALA LUMPUR: The battle against corruption and establishing integrity in the leadership will not work if it is done through appointing one person without any systemic reform of governance, the DAP said.
Party secretary-general Lim Guan Eng accused Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak of “just paying lip service and indulging in empty rhetoric” with his vow to make Malaysia corruption-free.
Lim was commenting on Najib’s speech at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco on Tuesday, in which the Prime Minister said he wanted to make corruption part of Malaysia’s past, not its future.
Najib had also said he had created a new governance and integrity minister role in the Cabinet, held by former president of the Malaysian chapter of Transparency International Datuk Paul Low.
Lim said creating a new governance and integrity ministry and appointing Low to the job is “an insignificant matter of style over substance”.
“Changing personalities without transforming policies that can effectively combat corruption is akin to putting old wine in new bottles,” he said at a press conference here on Tuesday.
Lim suggested six measures to fight corruption and establish clean governance, including declaring assets of all those in office and vetted by an international accounting firm.
He also suggested implementing open competitive tenders, barring families of government leaders from government contracts and protecting whistle-blowers.
The other measures, he said, were to remove leaders with extravagant lifestyles and come clean on political donations.
Quoting the TI-M Global Corruption Barometer, released in March, Lim said only 31% of respondents thought the Malaysian Government had been effective in fighting corruption.
Lim said Barisan Nasional should be willing to make fighting corruption the central thrust of government through institutional measures.
Current TI-M president Datuk Akhbar Satar said it was too soon to be criticising Low and the Government’s new measures to tackle corruption.