KUALA LUMPUR: The Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) has arrested 59 employees of public and private universities for corruption, with 49 of them charged in court, from 2017 to August this year.
Its deputy chief commissioner (Prevention) Datuk Seri Norazlan Mohd Razali said the cases involved a total of RM1,323,203.68 – with RM1,311,403.68 involving public universities while private university corruption cases amounted to RM11,800.
He said one recent case involved a director of a public university who allegedly received a car as inducement to help a company obtain a tender worth RM1.6mil, while a university professor was arrested over alleged false claims amounting to RM66,000 involving a research fund.
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"Incidents of corruption such as bribery, abuse of power, false claims and other financial offences do happen in our public and private universities," he said in his keynote address at the launching of the International Islamic University of Malaysia (IIUM) Anti-Bribery and Corruption Framework at IIUM Gombak here on Wednesday (Sept 21).
"All kinds of corrupt practices such as abuse of power and fraudulent accreditation in higher education have grave implications on the reputation of the institutions and diminish the core value they try to teach the students which is honesty.” he added.
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He also said IIUM was rated as a medium-risk agency in 2020 but this did not mean that the public university was free of corrupt practices.
"From 2017 until August this year, we have had only two cases involving IIUM staff.
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"Based on this record, I believe IIUM has been run with fairly tight governance and it would not be surprising if it aims to have zero corruption with the introductory of its Anti-Bribery and Corruption Framework," he said.
The framework outlines the university’s principles and procedures against bribery and corrupt practices to ensure the board members, university authorities and all employees uphold good values and integrity in implementing its vision and mission. – Bernama
