PETALING JAYA: The MACC Act 2009 does not cover offences related to money politics, NST Online has reported.
As such, the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) has no authority to investigate or take action against individuals involved in money politics, MACC deputy chief commissioner (operations) Azam Baki said.
According to the portal, Azam said this when commenting on DAP parliamentary leader Lim Kit Siang’s recent blog posting which demanded that MACC chief commissioner Dzulkifli Ahmad resign over his failure to discover the RM1 billion bribe that Lim allegedly received from PPBM chairman Dr Mahathir Mohamad.
Azam said he believed the bill on political financing might be tabled in Parliament next year.
He said Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Paul Low Seng Kuan was heading the National Consultative Committee on Political Financing to look into a law on political funding.
Talking about Lim’s assertion, Azam said the commission would not investigate the matter.
“It is not an issue of whether we know about it or not. The issue came out on social media and no one came forward to lodge a complaint.
“But, as far as we know, it is not an offence under our laws. So, that is why we did not open an investigation paper on that matter.”
The RM1 billion bribe claim was made by blogger Raja Petra Kamarudin in a recent blog posting entitled “Mahathir bribed Kit Siang RM1 billion to become Pakatan’s chairman”.
The blogger also claimed the money was also to ensure Mahathir’s son, Mukhriz, was given a safe parlimentary seat to contest in the next general election.
NST Online said the law on political funding, called the Political Donation and Expenditure Act, was unlikely to be tabled in Parliament anytime soon due to its complexity.
Lim had said he would meet his lawyers next week on a test case to sue the media that printed “lies and defamatory material” about him receiving the bribe from Mahathir.
“There are even some Umno/BN strategists who want MACC to arrest me over the outrageous RM1 billion bribe allegation, put me in orange-coloured MACC lock-up uniform and parade me throughout the country as the best way to counter the kleptocratic allegations against Najib Razak,” he said in a statement yesterday.-FMT NEWS-
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