KUALA LUMPUR: Umno Supreme Council member Datuk Dr Mohd Puad Zarkashi said the Malaysian Anti Corruption Commission (MACC) should not resort to stonewalling when it comes to transparency about its investigations.
He said the graft busters must be transparent in all the cases it was handling to prevent all kinds of speculation and slander.
"Stonewalling means refusal to answer queries...it is meant to kill a story.
"However, stonewalling can lead to speculation and slander," he said in a Facebook posting.
Puad said instead of being secretive, the MACC needs to be more transparent in its investigations by revealing names of individuals being investigated and why they were probed.
"Don't let the people resort to a guessing game," he said, while going on to state that there had been claims on social media that the MACC was investigating a top government official but it later turned out to be a false news.
He said the latest was the case of a viral video of a house belonging to a "Tan Sri" that had been raided by the MACC.
"The identity of this Tan Sri was not disclosed. Why?
"When Najib's (former prime minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak) house was raided by the police, hundreds of pictures and videos were splashed all over."
It was reported that the MACC raided the residence of a Tan Sri businessman for an investigation into allegations of corruption involving the procurement and management of the government's fleet of vehicles worth RM4.5 billion.
The graftbusters also raided four companies including a government vehicle supplier.
MACC chief Tan Sri Azam Baki, who confirmed the raid on the businessman's residence and four companies on Thursday, was reported to have said that a long list of people would be called up to explain why the particular company was given the job to manage government's vehicles.
He said graft busters also wanted to find out why the intention to give the project to another company was cancelled, despite it having received a letter of intent from the finance ministry.
Azam said the anti-graft agency would call up a former finance minister to shed light on the two questions, as well as a former prime minister to determine if he was aware of the matter as it happened during his administration.