KUALA LUMPUR: The Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) has taken a very robust and aggressive approach in its operation, including the arrest of corrupt individuals without fear or favour.
Its chief commissioner Datuk Dzulkifli Ahmad said this was because corruption is the enabler of many other heinous criminal activities such as various segments of transnational crimes and drug trafficking.
With corruption and bribery, he said, women and children would continue to be trafficked and weapon of small arms would continue to reach their violent destination.
“Corruption is not simply a crime. Tonnes of illicit drugs will continue to find its way to their consumers and smuggling activities and border violations would continue to flourish.
“Most worrying of all, corruption will continue to be the thief of economic and social development,” he said in his key note address at the 8th Anti-Corruption Agency Forum here today.
.He said the implementation of monitoring mechanisms alone was still inadequate if MACC was to bring the fight against corruption to its core.
“For me, all this fine effort will fail vainly, should there be no collective responsibility.
“If we as citizens standby and do nothing, we ourselves are to be blamed for allowing corruption to continue eroding the gains of our hard-fought democracy, ,” he said.
Eight members of agencies are taking part in the two-day forum aimed at promoting cooperation among anti-corruption agencies in the region. – Bernama