Selangor Mentri Besar, Tan Sri Muhammad Taib, should explain who is the owner of the RM2.4 million currency seized on his person by the Australian Federal Police in Brisbane on Sunday - the Selangor State Government, UMNO, his own or whatever!
This becomes even more pertinent as Australian Federal Police spokesman, Michael Spinks, who said the money, in a mixture of currencies, Singapore and New Zealand dollars and Malaysian ringgit, and which has been retained by the Australian Police, might have to be forfeited.
The Brisbane currency scandal reminds Malaysians of the promise by the Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim in Parliament last month that the Government proposed to confer additional powers on the Anti-Corruption Agency in its efforts to prevent and eradicate corruption.
This has led to a proposal by the first director-general of the Anti-Corruption Agency and retired Supreme Court Judge, Tan Sri Harun Hashim that the law should be amended to wage an effective war against corruption in high political places, namely making illicit enrichment an offence.
Tan Sri Harun Hashim suggested that politicians holding public office and government officers who are in possession of pecuniary resources or property which is proportionate to their known sources of income for which they cannot satisfactorily account should be guilty of an offence which is punishable with imprisonment not exceeding 20 years without the option of a fine and such properties be forfeited. Harun said "possession" should include possession by spouses, children, siblings and even front companies.
If such a law as suggested by Harun is already on the statute books, Muhammad Taib would have committed an offence of corruption and liable to a jail sentence up to 20 years if he cannot account satisfactorily for the RM2.4 million currency which the Australian Federal Police found in his possession and which he had not declared before trying to leave Brisbane for New Zealand on Sunday.
However, although Muhammad Taib is under no legal duty to account satisfactorily for RM2.4 million in his possession in Brisbane, he owes Malaysians a full and satisfactory accounting as he had fully supported the speech by the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Dr. Mahathir Mohamed, in the UMNO General Assembly in October condemning money politics and demanding a higher standard of public accountability and integrity of political leaders.
(25/12/96)