The stillbirth of ACA’s new transparency

Nazri Aziz, Minister in the PM’s Department, was taken aback when I told him during an exchange in his winding-up in Parliament yesterday that the Anti-Corruption Agency (ACA) had proclaimed a three-point policy of new transparency two years ago.

This was when Nazri was explaining and defending why the ACA could not reveal any information on cases under investigation for corruption. .

I referred him to the announcement by the ACA Director-General Zulkipli Mat Noor at a state directors’ meeting in Kuantan in July 2003 pledging a “new transparency to be more responsive towards public demand for information about its investigations”.

The three-point new transparency of ACA were:

+ The ACA will from now on keep all complainants informed on the status of investigations into their reports if they want it.

+ Heads of government departments will be informed of the decision of the Attorney-General on investigations involving their subordinates.

T+ he ACA will issue statements about cases that are still under investigation if it feels necessary, including those already decided by the Attorney-General.

At the time, Nazri’s predecessor as Minister in the PM’s Department overseeing the ACA, Dr. Rais Yatim publicly commended the ACA’s new transparency initiative, saying that “this would help the agency in gaining the public’s confidence”.

But the ACA’s new transparency policy, despite being publicly lauded by the Minister in the PM’s Department at the time, died a stillbirth. I am not aware, for instance, that the ACA had ever issued statements to inform the Malaysian public about the status of ACA investigations involving high-profile personalities.

I had lodged several ACA reports but I had never received any ACA report on the outcome of its investigations – and the same applies to other DAP leaders who had lodged ACA reports – as the ACA always argued, as Nazri was doing yesterday that the ACA was legally bound by the Prevention of Corruption Act 1997 to remain silent and not to offer any information.

The three-point ACA new transparency policy must be retrieved from its graveyard and new life breathed into it – if Malaysia is to take the first critical step to align the right to information in the war against graft and corruption.