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(NST) The Anti-Corruption Agency will be renamed the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) once the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission Act is passed in Parliament.
The head of the commission will be designated the chief commissioner, and he will have two deputies to assist him. All three will hold the rank of commissioner. Only one other officer will hold the rank of commissioner — the head of investigations. With the Anti-Corruption Act 1997, the appointment of the director-general of the ACA was made under section 3(2). With the MACC Act 2008, the chief commissioner will also be appointed under the same section and sub-section. However, unlike the DG of the agency, the MACC’s chief commissioner can be anybody deemed fit for the job and does not have to come from the ranks of the civil service. One major development will see the chief commissioner being given the powers of a deputy public prosecutor, giving the commission powers to prosecute. The four commissioners will also have powers to order investigations into reports lodged with the MACC. Both these powers are practised by the anti-corruption bodies in Hong Kong, Australia and Singapore and the decision to make them available to the MACC was taken because the agencies in these three countries are considered some of the most effective in the world. Also to be created is a Service Commission which will look into the “hiring and firing” of commission staff. This commission, to be set up via an amendment to the Federal Constitution, will be charged with ensuring those hired as officers of the commission are those with a high level of integrity. The scope of this commission will be: hiring of officers and confirmation of their employment, promotions and disciplinary issues. The committee that studied the proposed revamp of the ACA into the MACC also decided that the commission needed to offer incentives and career prospects which were attractive to its officers, on par with those offered in the private sector. This was to ensure the commission had the power to attract those with professional and vital degrees to enable the MACC to have quality officers. With the cabinet’s decision to model the MACC after the Independent Commission on Anti-Corruption (ICAC) in Hong Kong on April 16, it was found that ICAC officers received emoluments on par with the Hong Kong police force, while ACA officers in Malaysia did not receive such incentives as were being given to policemen here. Another major difference in the new act is that the definition of public bodies has been enlarged to include sports bodies. What this means is that sports bodies such as the Football Association of Malaysia, Badminton Association of Malaysia, the Squash Racquets Association of Malaysia and others can be scrutinised by the MACC. ACA deputy director-general Datuk Abu Kassim Mohamed, in a recent briefing on the commission, said before this, the ACA could not investigate possible corrupt practices. “Now, let’s say the president of a sports body gives a contract to a family member, we can investigate and charge,” he said.
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