MALAYSIAN Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) chief Tan Sri Azam Baki should volunteer himself to testify before the Parliamentary Select Committee (PSC) for Agencies under the Prime Minister’s Department or resign, said Iskandar Puteri MP Lim Kit Siang.
According to Lim, doing so will set a good example for all public servants.
“Azam should resign as MACC Chief Commissioner if he is not prepared to appear before the PSC for Agencies to explain the serious allegations against him which compromised national anti-corruption efforts,” he added.
The veteran DAP lawmaker went on to slam Prime Minister Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob’s continued silence over the matter, calling it “most troubling”, and questioned if Ismail Sabri is going to raise the issue at the next Cabinet meeting.
“Will there be a Cabinet meeting this Wednesday? If not, why was not a Cabinet meeting scheduled for January 5 as the Prime Minister had recalled all Ministers holidaying overseas to return because of the floods in the country?”
According to the 2015 annual report for public-listed company Excel Force MSC Bhd, Azam owned 2,156,000 warrants in the company as of March 21, 2016.
At the material time, Azam was the MACC investigations division director.
The matter was not widely reported until MACC’s Consultation and Corruption Prevention Panel member Edmund Terence Gomez resigned from the panel.
Gomez resigned in protest because his requests for a panel to be convened to discuss allegations against Azam were ignored.
The Agencies PSC is led by PAS’s Abdul Latiff Abdul Rahman who has yet to indicate if his committee would probe Azam.
Commenting on corruption in the country, Lim further said that ensuring that Malaysia is an honest and non-corrupt country and acknowledged worldwide as among the top 30 countries regarded as least corrupt is serious business, and that he will not be part of a charade so that someone could score triple infamy of corruption to Malaysia.
“We are in the new year of 2022 but Malaysians are still grappling with the problem of corruption from last year” – Jan 3, 2022
