Recently, the Director-General of the Anti-Corruption Agency (ACA) Datuk Ahmad Zaki Husin urged leaders of political parties to stop labelling the ACA as a government tool, as such claims would result in the public losing confidence in the ACA and kindle suspicions among foreigners that corruption was rife in this country.
Ahmad Zaki should confirm or deny Anwar’s allegations that the ACA had unsuccessfully recommended prosecution of Minister for International Trade and Industry, Datuk Paduka Rafidah Aziz and former Malacca Chief Minister, Tan Sri Rahim Tamby Cik, for corruption and both these recommendations were vetoed by the higher authorities.
If the ACA Director-General dare not even confirm or deny Anwar’s allegations, the ACA has only itself to blame if it is unable to command public confidence and is regarded as a mere government tool.
In his fourth police report last Friday, Anwar alleged that the Attorney-General’s Chambers and the ACA had concluded by June 1994 that there was prima facie case to prosecute Rahim Tamby Cik on four charges of corruption, based on the information supplied to the ACA by the former DAP MP for Kota Melaka, Lim Guan Eng.
Anwar said that based on Guan Eng’s information, the ACA also found that Rahim had accounts in tens of banks, numerous business interests and properties - that as of 31st May 1993, known assets owned by Rahim totalled RM39.8 million.
Ahmad Zaki Husin recently lamented that the Opposition had not provided documentats to assist the agency in its anti-corruption campaign. What is the use of anyone furnishing document or evidence on corruption to the ACA when it is powerless to initiate prosecution against those it is satisfied had been guilty of corrupt practices, and even worse, unable to protect those who had co-operated with the ACA to expose corruption in high political places.
(22/8/99)