Warisan Leader Questions Consistency Of Macc Investigations

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Warisan information chief Azis Jamman has urged Putrajaya to only apply one standard in corruption probes, warning that public confidence in law enforcement is being damaged by the perception of selective actions.
Azis said trust in institutions had eroded because Malaysians believed there appeared to be two different sets of standards being applied.
One, he said, for those politically aligned with the ruling political parties and the other against the opposition.
He noted the instance of contrasting treatment of two former political leaders investigated by the MACC.
In the case linked to BN, he said the individual “was not remanded and not made to wear the MACC orange attire” despite the discovery of “hundreds of millions of ringgit”, referring to former prime minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob.
By contrast, he said Shafie Apdal, in a case where “no money was found, no money trail established, and no witnesses pointing to wrongdoing”, was “remanded for over a week, forced to sleep on the lockup floor, and made to wear the MACC orange shirt for public viewing”.
Azis was referring to the remand against Shafie before the 2018 general election.
“Those contrasting treatments alone raise serious questions about fairness and consistency,” he said in a statement from Kota Kinabalu yesterday.
Azis was responding to Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim’s speech in Inanam earlier, where Bernama had reported that he defended the resignation of his senior political secretary, Shamsul Iskandar Akin, saying it demonstrated that the government upheld a “high level of integrity”.
Anwar had also described the resignation as unprecedented and said wrongdoing must always be followed by full investigations.
Mining scandal
Towards this end, Azis said similar concerns had now surfaced in Sabah, where investigations linked to a former political secretary from a party aligned with Pakatan Harapan had drawn “silence” during the state election.
He noted that only two minor individuals linked to Gabungan Rakyat Sabah (GRS) had been charged in court with the Sabah mining scandal to date.
This was in spite of several figures from GRS, who had been recorded on video and publicly admitted receiving money from the controversial businessperson, Albert Tei, but had yet to face court charges, Azis added.
“Are they being protected because they hold important positions in GRS or because they are politically useful to the government?” Azis questioned.
Azis also referred to the recent video released by Tei implicating MACC chief commissioner Azam Baki as alleged by a purported Shamsul’s proxy.
PM’s former aide Shamsul Iskandar Akin and businessperson Albert TeiAnwar himself had acknowledged the existence of the planned recording and argued that Azam should step aside from the Sabah mineral probe, he added.
“For the sake of credibility, Azam must recuse himself from all investigations related to the Sabah mineral case.
“Public perception of bias will only worsen if the same individual implicated, even indirectly, continues to oversee the probe,” Azis said.
He further urged the prime minister to “show consistency, uphold transparency, and ensure equal treatment for all Malaysians, regardless of political alignment”, adding that only then can trust in our institutions be restored. - Mkini

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