Zaki's deafening silence the  past ten days  on the Internet website alleging corrupt practices by Sarawak Chief Minister will not enhance ACA's credibility or improve Malaysia's ranking in TI's  2001 Corruption Perception Index


Media statement
by Lim Kit Siang

(Petaling Jaya, Monday): The deafening silence of the Anti-Corruption Agency director-general Datuk Ahmad Zaki Husin in the past ten days  on the Internet website alleging corrupt practices by Sarawak Chief Minister, Tan Sri Taib Mahmud will not enhance  ACA's credibility or improve Malaysia's ranking in  the 2001 Corruption Perception Index (CPI) of Transparency International (TI) to be released later this year.

Ten days ago, I had publicly pointed out that a website had appeared on the Internet making serious allegations of corruption and abuses of power against the Sarawak Chief Minister and  that anyone visiting it would find it crammed with details and documentation.

I had asked whether the  ACA had set up a high-level investigation team to probe into all the allegations made on this website, in the same manner the ACA had swung into action in October 1999  to  set  up a special high-level team to investigate into the statutory declaration made by  former Bank Negara assistant governor Datuk Abdul Murad alleging that the former Deputy
Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim had amassed a fortune of RM3 billion while in government through 20 "Master Accounts".

If in the past ten days, Ahmad Zaki had been out of the country, indisposed or otherwise inaccessible to the mass media, his 10-day silence on the Internet website could be explained away.

But Ahmad Zaki was very much in the news in the past ten days, commenting on various  ACA investigations such as  the RM19 billion Perbandanan Usahawan Nasional Berhad (PUNB) bond scam, the  allegations of abuse of power by senior Prisons Department officials in giving special treatment to former newsreader Sharma Shukla who is serving a three-year jail sentence in Kajang Prison or the RM11 billion Perwaja Steel scandal.

Ahmad Zaki  cannot  avoid adverse inferences being drawn about the ACA's professionalism, competence and integrity by  being selectively silent on the Internet website alleging corrupt practices by Taib when he had been so forthcoming with regard to other cases.

How can Ahmad Zaki act as an ostrich with head buried-in-the-sand  hoping that his silence on the Internet website alleging corrupt practices by Taib would not be noticed, especially after Malaysiakini had reported on 6th February that the ACA was neither monitoring nor investigating the  Internet website and its  serious allegations of corruption and  abuses of power against  Taib in his 19-year tenure as Sarawak Chief Minister.

Even more shocking was the excuse given by the ACA official for this inaction that

"our Internet connection is bad and we have difficulties in accessing Internet, let alone the website".
As a result of his deafening silence in the past ten days on the website alleging corruption against Taib, Ahmad Zaki's own credibility and that of the ACA are  now on the line, as the ACA director-general had publicly declared that the ACA takes all complaints about corruption seriously, even if they are in the form of poison pen letters which are usually anonymous or have false names and addresses.

If so, can Ahmad Zaki explain why the ACA is not prepared to take the Internet website complaints seriously as  to initiate high-level investigations into the allegations of corruption against Taib?

Since Ahmad Zaki's  taking over as director-general of ACA, Malaysia's ranking in the Transparency International's annual  Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) has plummeted. Malaysia was  placed 23rd in 1995, 26th place in 1996, 32nd in 1997, 29th in 1998, 32nd in 1999 and 36th in 2000 in the Transparency International CPI.

It will be an adverse reflection on Ahmad Zaki's leadership of the ACA if Malaysia's ranking in the TI's CPI continues to decline, but the ACA's deafening silence and inaction with regard to the serious allegations of corruption against Taib on the website is not calculated to improve Malaysia's ranking in  the 2001 Corruption Perception Index (CPI) but may drag it down further.

Just as justice must not only be done but seen to be done, the ACA  must not only combat corruption but be seen to be combating corruption and Ahmad Zaki should come out of his self-imposed silence to inform Malaysians as to  what
the ACA is doing with regard to the website allegations of corruption against Taib.

(12/2/2001)


*Lim Kit Siang - DAP National Chairman