Paul Low: MACC to hold companies accountable for corrupt practices of its employees

KUALA LUMPUR: A corporate liability provision under the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) Act 2009, which will hold companies equally accountable for corrupt practices of their employees, is set to be tabled in Parliament on March 2015.

Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Datuk Paul Low Seng Kuan (pic) said that the provision was aimed at discouraging the private sector from handing out bribes to Government officials in exchange for favours or contracts.

He contends that most corruption in Malaysia, particularly bribery, were coming from the private and corporate sectors.

“We want to encourage better cooperation between the private and public sector. “Though we put in all the measures, we still cannot eradicate corruption unless the private sector stops using bribery. Of course they will say ‘We cannot help it.’ But I think you can.

“In order to push the private sector not to pay bribes, we are going to pass a corporate liability provision which will hold them liable for corrupt practices of employees, unless they can prove they had adequate procedure to prevent bribes from taking place,” he said Tuesday.

Under the present laws, Low said, private sector employees caught giving bribes would be charged as an individual.

This made sense for small amounts of cash bribes, but for instances where people were bribing officials with hundreds of thousands of Ringgit suggested that employers were also involved in corruption.

“We cannot deny that instructions to pay bribes are coming from the corporation. “Once this provision comes in, every company has to be careful with their public sector partnership,” he said, during an anti-corruption forum at the Mid Valley Convention Centre, in conjunction with the MACC’s first Open Day.

The MACC Open Day was held in conjunction with International Anti-Corruption Day, featuring forum discussions by MACC deputy chief commissioner Datuk Mustafar Ali and industry integrity officers like Datuk Samsiah Abu Bakar of Petronas, Datuk Hafsah Hashim of SME Corp, Lim Cheong Guan of Top Glove Corporation Bhd and Datuk Saw Choo Boon of special task force to facilitate business (Pemudah).

Mustafar said that graft busting was a collective effort between the public and Government, saying that MACC could not totally eradicate corruption if people went on with the mindset that graft busting was a responsibility solely for the commission.

“Corruption is slowly decreasing in Malaysia but if that partnership and understanding is not there, structural corruption will still exist and can take deeper root.

“If we don’t have the cooperation to combat this together, only God knows what will happen,” he said.

Centre to Combat Corruption and Cronyism (C4) founding director Cynthia Gabriel said the approved amendments was a step in the right direction to give the MACC more bite, but said graft busters needed to demonstrate more will in tackling grand scale corruptions, which she felt was not being done.

“Onus is on MACC to show that they will go out and take bull by the horns.

“Right now it appears they are not doing that, and have been using limitations in their law or agency as an excuse not to carry out their roles.

“We will have to see if the reforms were piecemeal and ad hoc or substantive,” she said.