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Malaysia is awaiting the findings of a special investigation into MACC Chief Commissioner Tan Sri Azam Baki’s share ownership, which according to the Government will be presented this week. This controversy has reignited questions about accountability at the country’s top anti-corruption body. With calls growing for a Royal Commission of Inquiry, the Prime Minister says it is still too early to decide. But is the current process enough to restore public confidence, or is a deeper independent probe needed? On this episode of #ConsiderThis Melisa Idris speaks with Arief Hamizan, Head of Research & Policy Advocacy, The Center to Combat Corruption and Cronyism (C4 Center).
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00:10hello and good evening i'm melissa idris welcome to consider this this is the show where we want
00:15you to consider and then we consider what you know of the news of the day malaysia is awaiting
00:20the findings of a special investigation into macc chief chief commissioner tan sri azambaki's
00:27share ownership which according to the government the report will be presented this week now this
00:33controversy um in macc has reignited questions about the credibility of uh the credibility at
00:41the country's top anti-corruption body and there are calls growing calls for a royal commission of
00:49inquiry which the prime minister says is too early to decide on so um the question we want to ask
00:56tonight is whether the current process is enough to restore public confidence or whether a deeper
01:03independent probe an rci is needed so joining me on the show to discuss this further is arif amizan
01:10who is the head of research and policy advocacy at the center to combat corruption and cronism
01:15better known as the c4 center arif thank you so much for being on the show with me today so
01:20the reason why i thought was really great to um talk to someone from c4 is because you guys released
01:26a
01:26report um about a month ago in january which had several case studies um and in those case studies
01:34that really highlighted the need for why there needs to be improved oversight into macc okay can we talk
01:40a little bit about that when you look at all the case studies that were presented in this report
01:43were there similarities that you um that you noticed were there any trends within those case studies that
01:51you can point to thank you uh firstly melissa thank you for the invitation to speak um yeah really happy
01:57to be here i think in terms of the case studies it would be good to maybe give a bit
02:02of context as to
02:03which uh what what are the oversight bodies that we're thinking about when it comes to the macc
02:07so according to the macc uh there are five oversight bodies three of them are established by the macc act
02:13and two of them are established by administrative order uh that means that they're appointed under the
02:18executive um what we found is that all of these bodies are actually advisory bodies they don't
02:25have powers to investigate they don't have powers to compel documents to call upon witnesses and because
02:31of that when we looked at the case studies which i think i have to credit my co-author benjamin
02:35chock he
02:36did a lot of lead leg work for this uh there were many many similarities in terms of the way
02:42that
02:42the macc was able to evade accountability uh particularly the officers within uh the the cases
02:49themselves so uh some key cases that we looked at were azambaki's first shareholding scandal we also
02:56looked at the death of tio ben hok and the role of certain macc officers implicated and also uh one
03:03other
03:03important one would be the case of um side sadik's corruption scandal where according to uh the court of
03:11appeal uh certain witnesses were actually um actually uh intimidated throughout the macc process
03:20so um what we found was that even though there was potentially statements from these oversight bodies
03:26public statements clearing the macc of any sort of uh wrongdoing or reform uh there were many times
03:34when an rci like in the case of tio bang hok uh showed the other showed otherwise and there was
03:40actually no way in which any other independent body an external body or even within the government
03:45was able to act upon these recommendations because ultimately when you look at the structure of the
03:50macc you find that it's pretty much self-regulating and almost entirely under the influence of the
03:57executive through the appointments of the prime minister and so on so those are some of the trends
04:01that we've seen so far right so let's talk a little bit about these um oversight bodies so as you
04:06said
04:07um macc overseen by five bodies on practice the i'm curious to know in practice how these bodies work
04:16are they um with those statements that you you said that they released after these case studies
04:21are they able to hold macc accountable had macc changed after the advisory that statements that they
04:30put out and you mentioned they're also um linked to the executive can we talk a little bit about that
04:36are are they insulated insulated from political pressure okay maybe i can speak to uh the second
04:43question first in terms of political pressure um every single body is uh all of their members are
04:50appointed by the prime minister either indirectly or directly so for the first three bodies which are
04:56uh established by the macc act the young deputuan algon will appoint the members on the advice of
05:02the prime minister and for the other two all of the members are appointed directly by the prime minister
05:06so because of that uh clearly there is some conflict of interest or potential conflict of interest
05:12when we're thinking about them investigating another body which is under the executive now uh relating to
05:17your first question uh there doesn't seem to be sorry can you remind me what the first question was
05:23whether or not these um advise these bodies these oversight bodies when they release their statements
05:29um advising the macc for change or accountability does does that work does it hold the macc accountable
05:39for what they hope will change unfortunately we know very little about the operations of these advisory
05:46bodies uh when you look at the annual reports of the macc what is often listed is only the appointment
05:52of the members of these bodies so often it only occurs internally um from from what we found so far
05:59uh you know we've we've called tried calling the office many times over the past year during our
06:04research and we were able to find very little information about it so in terms of the effectiveness
06:09i think there's very little way for us to uh gauge how well these bodies uh actually do recommend
06:16macc to improve all right you mentioned um there was a case study in to the death uh that that
06:22talked
06:23about looked at the death of tia beng hog and how the macc responded talk to me about that because
06:30there
06:30was an rci into the death of tia beng hog and now we have growing calls to establish a royal
06:37commission of
06:38inquiry in to help address some of the concerns around accountability within macc with the shareholding
06:43controversy um was was there um what did the rci into tia beng hog's death achieve really for macc
06:53accountability yeah i i think um i think it ultimately when we look at it we have to understand the
07:00that the
07:00rci is a fact-finding investigative body um and it is empowered with legal powers to investigate to
07:09compel witnesses compel documents and produce a report um with the tia beng hog case i think
07:16uh it's a very tragic case and even more tragic that the the family are still searching for justice
07:22all these years later because the rci found and published and reported that certain macc officers
07:30were implicated and the abuses that they conducted towards tia beng hog did contribute to his death
07:35and this was also a finding of the court of appeal unfortunately when it comes to information and
07:42prosecutor prosecutorial powers that is in the hands of the executive and for some reason you know we've
07:48seen the multiple nfas over the few years uh the past few years uh relating to this case um we
07:54do wonder
07:55you know whether or not there is any other option but i i would still say that rci is extremely
08:01integral to
08:03this current azambaki shareholder scandal because as much as the government doesn't want us to speculate
08:08there will be speculation until we find what the actual facts are and the current investigative
08:13committee which has been established by the government does not have the same legal footing as
08:17an rci would so in terms of trust building with the public in terms of what the credibility of these
08:23the findings of the investigation it's it's very limited when you compare it to an rci
08:28why is that important why is it so important that an anti-corruption agency like the macc have
08:35the full confidence of the public some would say that uh the chief commissioner of the macc is the
08:42most powerful man in the country uh you know the macc as an institution has a lot of information on
08:49a lot
08:49of uh you know corrupt activities which happen which can be used to intimidate which can be used uh for
08:55selective prosecution uh by you know bad faith actors the macc is legally granted powers uh wide
09:01wide powers to freeze bank accounts to investigate witnesses uh and and to compel documents and all
09:07these sorts of things and unlike many other enforcement agencies the macc does not have any sort of public
09:14oversight mechanism it doesn't report to parliament and that has been the issue from the uh you know the
09:21the establishment of the macc tio beng hawk's case was within the first year of the establishment of the macc
09:28and so it's very difficult for the public to truly believe that such a powerful institution with such
09:34little well which has seen its credibility whittled away over the years um you know it's capable
09:40it's truly capable of ridding corruption uh in the country especially as that seen as many people as the most
09:46important issue
09:47um okay so now i want to come to the recommendations that you put forward in your report where do
09:54you see
09:54the most urgent um reforms are if where um where's the restructuring needed for macc great i think uh
10:04maybe i could start with how we came to these recommendations is that we looked at uh international
10:10best practices so a few references were the united nations corruption uh convention against corruption which
10:17all nations in the world have have uh assigned to which means that you have to establish an anti-corruption
10:22agency but it doesn't give uh sort of uh an outline or a very specific guide of how to run
10:30one
10:30so that comes within the jakarta principles and also with the colombo commentary which is an extension or
10:36discussion of the jakarta principles and under those there's two uh principles which are internal
10:42accountability and external accountability and what it says is that anti-corruption agencies
10:48must uh even though that they are independent they cannot be sub uh be arbitrary they have to be subject
10:55to rule of law and what that means is that there has to be a powerful external accountability mechanism
11:00as a check on the powers of this very very powerful anti-corruption agency so the first
11:06uh urgent um reform proposal that we've given which is is not new but it is that the chief commissioner's
11:14appointment and the dismissal must go through parliament uh you know parliament as the the house
11:22of representatives where where uh the racket's voices is heard uh should have a say and should be able
11:28to vote on the appointment of the of this this very powerful position and also dismissal you know uh
11:34this diffuses the the the the the responsibility away from just a single individual and it makes more
11:41people accountable and i think that's that can only be a good thing secondly uh the macc uh should be
11:48under
11:48the oversight of the proposed malaysian ombudsman office so the ombudsman office is proposed uh it's
11:54it's been a reform long time coming and it's been proposed as something which is an independent body
11:59which will have the same these powers of investigation to compel uh witnesses and documents and to propose
12:05recommendations publicly um and you know it's it initially was uh described as a body to look into
12:12the civil service to look at government agencies but our proposal means that it has to be extended
12:17the scope of this jurisdiction has to be extended to the macc because otherwise there's no way for
12:21the public to know what's going on with macc and what recommendations are being proposed and also
12:27whether or not they're acted upon are if those recommendations do they require change of
12:34legislation or is it um purely a governance structure issue they do all of them require either legal
12:42amendments or new laws to be introduced however if we're thinking about quick wins i think the
12:47quickest win could be that the uh all of the advisory bodies all of these oversight bodies will just
12:52publish their findings uh it's not very difficult uh in fact the macc annual report is supposed to be
12:58tabled in parliament by law every year and there are years sometimes where we don't see that annual
13:03report being tabled so i think if you know if they just uphold this duty of disclosure then i think
13:08that
13:08solves a major problem without having to compel them to do so arif thank you so much for um sharing
13:14those
13:15insights with us as well as the work of the c4 team in putting out that report that was arif
13:21hamizan
13:21from the c4 center we're going to take a quick break here and consider this we'll be back with more
13:25stay tuned we'll be right back
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