During his monthly address to the staff of the Prime Minister’s Department, Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim recently commented on the excess expenditure of public funds by the previous government and urged public officials to act as checks and balances in preventing corruption and wastages of public funds.
Although the sentiment is appreciated, his subsequent statement calling for any irregularities to be directly reported to him is worrying. The Center to Combat Corruption and Cronyism (C4 Center) disagrees with this approach. It is ineffective at best, and at worst, it further consolidates Anwar Ibrahim’s dual power as both Prime Minister and Finance Minister – portfolios that should have remained separate.
The formation of the novel “unity government” may have possibly given rise to circumstances that led to Anwar Ibrahim’s decision to occupy the chief executive and Finance Minister roles despite his own earlier protests against this practice.
Notwithstanding this, several key questions arise: would protections for whistleblowers be guaranteed should they come forward to the prime minister? How feasible, effective and impartial would a whistleblowing system concentrated solely in the [hands of the] prime minister be? How else can whistleblowing be complemented to eliminate wastage and corruption?
C4 Center strongly recommends that in the government’s agenda to eliminate wastage and leakage of funds, the tabling of a procurement bill, which has already been laid out in the...
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