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Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Malaysia cracks down on corruption; opposition rails

KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters, 23/10/2007) - Malaysia's anti-corruption body will charge 10 people, most of them civil servants, on Tuesday for misusing state funds in a crackdown dismissed by the opposition as inadequate.

The arrests could be an indication that Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi is reviving his moribund anti-corruption campaign ahead of widely expected early general elections.

A top government auditor had earlier publicly rebuked some ministries for mismanaging their funds. One ministry even paid $66 for a set of four screwdrivers costing $12, the Auditor-General said in a recent report.

"It's too little, too late, too lax," said Lim Guan Eng, leader of the opposition Democratic Action Party. "Where is the beef? They should go after the big guns, not the small fry."

The Anti-Corruption Agency said several others were being investigated for similar offences. "Ten people are being charged in court today," the agency's chief Ahmad Said Hamdan told reporters.

He said six of the 10 people arrested were from the Welfare Department and two from the Youth and Sports Ministry.

Despite Abdullah's four-year-old anti-corruption campaign, there have been few high-profile catches and convictions.

Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index showed that Malaysia declined by five notches to a rank of 44 in 2006 from 39 in 2005, out of 163 countries.

"Although Abdullah does mean business, based on his many statements against corruption, the public remains unconvinced that enough is being done substantively," Transparency International Malaysia President Ramon Navaratnam said recently.

Abdullah's campaign has also been handicapped by recent judicial criticism of the handling of some of the few high-profile cases that have reached court.

Abdullah is due to visit the anti-corruption agency's headquarters on Wednesday for a briefing, his office said.

In July, the anti-corruption agency cleared the country's police minister and police chief of allegations that they had accepted money to free suspected criminals.

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