Rewcastle Brown: Complete transparency needed for political funding

KUALA LUMPUR: Unless there is a complete political transparency in political funding, conflict of interest will continue to to be a problem, says journalist Claire Rewcastle Brown of Sarawak Report.

She said whenever there were people who benefited from decision-makers, issues of sources of political funding would always be kept under wraps.

She added that the media had the responsibility to tip off the public on those in power who were mired in conflict of interest.

"Journalists are not cops who can go knocking on doors, but we are the intermediary who can tip off the public.

A corrupt regime will always try to silence the media. The media needs to pressurise powers," said Rewcastle Brown.

She was speaking at a forum on corruption and political patronage here today (Feb 21), organised by NGO Center to Combat Corruption and Cronyism (C4).

Rewcastle Brown, who was part of the international media which blew the whistle on the 1MDB scandal, also pointed out that Malaysian media were once "silenced" to an extent by the previous government Barisan Nasional that "a foreign person like me" had to be the ones who exposed the corruption in Malaysia.

Rewcastle Brown is a Briton.