KUALA LUMPUR: The Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) has upped the ante, shifting its attention to nabbing bribegivers and hauling them to court.

Coming on the heels of a series of court action against corrupt enforcement offices nationwide, the anti-graft body will launch its first wave next week by charging more than 30 bribe-givers.

This comes after MACC received reports from enforcement personnel who claimed to have received offers of bribes.

Sources told the New Straits Times that most of the bribe-givers were traffic offenders.

“The rest are those who had offered bribes to local authority personnel to settle offences related to illegal house renovations,” said a source.

The source said MACC had received numerous reports from en forcement of f icer s that they had been offered bribes by members of the public to avoid summonses.

“Some had offered bribes to enforcement personnel from agencies, such as the Road Transport Department and municipal councils.” It is learnt that the latest operation on bribe-givers will be followed by another operation that targets graft in the private sector.

“The operation is part of the commission’s holistic approach to weed out bribery and corrupt practices at every level of society.”

The MACC has been making headlines with a series of swoops
as part of its pledge to weed out corruption in all segments of society.

The NST had, on Oct 17, front-paged an exclusive report on the MACC’s Op Belot to catch law enforcers who had turned a blind eye to vice activities.

The report was followed by another exclusive with Deputy Home Minister Datuk Seri Dr Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar, who said that a Special Tactical Team 3 (STT3), comprising a group of intelligence officers from the forces’ different branches would be deployed to nab policemen who had allowed vice activities to flourish.

Following the reports, Urban Wellbeing, Housing and Local Government Ministry’s Local Government Department director-general, Maziah Adnan, said the Local Government Act 1976 (Act 171) was being reviewed to give enforcers more bite to address the problem.

A slew of court action has been taken in the last four weeks, with the anti-graft body taking eight Customs officers, including two senior directors, to court on Sept 29 on 25 counts of receiving RM31,200 in kickbacks.

On Sunday, it was reported that 24 civil servants from various enforcement agencies in Penang had been arrested for allegedly accepting bribes from syndicates selling pirated CDs and DVDs.

The following day, six civil servants comprising four police officers and one each from the Seberang Prai Municipal Council and Home Ministry claimed trial to eight corruption charges totalling RM5,750 at the Butterworth Sessions Court in Penang.

On the same day, six Customs officers were charged in two courts in Shah Alam with multiple counts of graft involving RM159,500 for turning a blind eye to liquor-smuggling activities.

Between January and September, the MACC has arrested 356 people comprising government servants, top management, professional management, those from the private sector, support groups and politicians.

-NST