KUALA LUMPUR: The government will investigate certain agencies for corruption, Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad said.
Those found to be corrupt will be dealt with accordingly, the Prime Minister said, adding that he will look into the roles of Attorney-General (AG) Tan Sri Mohamed Apandi Ali, former Inspector-General of Police, the Election Commission (EC), as well as the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC).
“Our intention is to go for people who have shown a tendency to be corrupt or who have committed known corrupt acts,” he said at a press conference today after a Pakatan Harapan presidential council meeting.
Dr Mahathir said the AG has undermined his own credibility by hiding evidence of wrongdoings.
“That is wrong in law,” he said.
Dr Mahathir said that the government would also study whether the MACC had acted fairly.
“If we find that they are biased or in favour of any group, including ourselves, we will have to change them,” he said, adding that new heads of government agencies will be vetted by Parliament.
He said the MACC’s lack of transparency could be seen during the 14th General Election.
“The MACC seems to ignore the fact that corruption was rife.
“We have pictures showing that people were involved in corruption.
“For example, in the last two days there was no speeches made but instead money was distributed.
“We will properly investigate all these things,” he said.
Dr Mahathir said that he would also investigate EC to determine if the commission had been biased.
He said in some states, there were issues in forming the state government.
He noted on what happened in Sabah where there were cases of politicians crossing over to another party.
He said these politicians were bought over.
“You can have people crossover if they like because of principles but if they are bought over it is not recongised as a proper change of party.
“We will investigate this and when we find elements of corruption the election will be invalidated,” he said.
He said Pakatan Harapan government wants to control or reduce corruption to its most minimum level because they are aware that it is not possible to completely erase corruption.
He said political corruption had badly affected the democratic process.
“Elections should be free and clean. We find that this election is not clean at all - constituencies and boundaries were changed.
“All these things are worse than gerrymandering,” he said.
He also said all these things will be studied, and possibly the original boundaries of constituencies reinstated.
Dr Mahathir said it was not about revenge, and that any action taken against agency heads would be done in accordance with the laws of the country.
Report by, Tasnim Lokman, Farhana Syed Nokman, Nur Lela Zulkipli, Rohaniza Idris, Rizanizam Abdul Aziz and Manirajan Ramsamy