NGO: Detailed evidence more important than screen captures, photos in corruption cases

CAMERON HIGHLANDS: People who report instances of abuse or corruption to non-governmental organisations (NGOs) observing the parliamentary by-election here need to furnish more details for verification than just a screen-capture or photograph.

"We usually get the person who reported the incident to give more details, such as time and location, any further witnesses, so we can get the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) to investigate further," said Malaysia Corruption Watch (MCW) president Jais Abdul Karim.

However, the screen-captures or photos sent to the NGO were often forwarded from other social media users, with no details to back up allegations.

"The MACC will carry out follow-up or court action if there is at least 80% evidence, otherwise it's a waste of the court's time and resources," said Jais.

MCW is part of 10 NGOs invited by the Election Commission (EC), which has sent a total of 50 election observers to monitor the Cameron Highlands polls.

Jais said on Saturday (Jan 19) that the NGO had learnt some valuable lessons from more experienced bodies such as Bersih, and they had also carried out a post-mortem on the first few days of the campaign period here.

One such was differentiating between "voters" and "volunteers", especially in light of a photo of a Pakatan Harapan worker disbursing cash to volunteers which went viral.

The MCW president added that another cause for concern was the spiralling costs of by-elections, citing the additional police personnel brought in for the two-week campaigning period as a example.

"If the EC is spending about RM3mil for this by-election, imagine how much other government agencies are spending as well, and in these five years, how many by-elections are there going to be?" Jais asked.