Much has been done to fight corruption but unfortunately, it is still happening on a daily basis.
Today (1 March), Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob assured the people that the government does not and will not protect any individual involved in corruption.
“Individuals involved in corruption either from the government or the opposition will be brought to justice,” Sabri said in Dewan Rakyat today.
In the meantime, he also said that one cannot assume that the government is protecting certain individuals and only taking actions on selected people to satisfy the other parties.
“We are not sure if there was any selective prosecution, but I assure you there will be no selective prosecution from today onwards.”
His statement was a response to Opposition Leader, Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim’s question on the seriousness of the government leadership to state that the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) should act without hesitation against anyone.
Ismail Sabri also emphasised that many ongoing court cases which involved elected representatives from both the government and the opposition proved that the government is serious in taking action against those involved in corruption.
He said the government also remained committed to implementing the initiatives under the National Anti-Corruption Plan (NACP) 2021.
“However, keep in mind that the improvement efforts are long term efforts and the outcome can only be seen in the future,” Sabri reminded.
Additionally, he said the CPI (Corruption Perception’s Index) ranking was done based on perceptions through studies by international institutions and Malaysia’s CPI for 2021 was calculated based on nine out of 13 studies conducted by various international agencies. The reports showed that among the nine ASEAN member countries, Malaysia ranked second best after Singapore.
Corruption is definitely intolerable and we hope that stern actions will be taken to curb this issue.
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