Anti-Corruption agencies in France, China, Indonesia and Philippines created shock waves in their countries in the past 48 hours when they caught “big fishes” and took action against “grand corruption” in the past 48 hours.
In France, former president Nicolas Sarkozy has just been charged with corruption and influence peddling after being questioned for 15 hours, marking the first time a French ex-head of state had been taken into custody in a criminal investigation.
If convicted of those charges, he could face a sentence of up to 10 years in prison.
In the Philippines, former president Gloria Macapagal Arroyo was suspended from Congress as Pampanga representative for 90 days pending her trial for graft over the award of US$329 million construction contract to Chinese telecommunications firm ZTE in the National Broadband Network (NBN) controversy when she was Filipino President in 2007.
In Indonesia, the Jakarta Corruption Court handed down a historic sentence on Monday evening by sentencing 53-year-old former Constitutional Court chief justice Akil Mochtar to life imprisonment, the most severe sentence in the court’s history.
The former Golkar Party politician was found guilty of accepting Rp 57 billion (US$4.7 million) in bribes from a number of regional heads to influence decisions on election disputes during his tenure at the court.
The life sentence for Akil marks the first time the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) has successfully convinced the court to sentence a graft defendant facing graft or money-laundering charges to life in prison since its establishment in 2003.
In Beijing, China’s corruption crackdown snared the highest military official in more than six decades when the Chinese Communist Party Politburo meeting presided over by President Xi Jinping expelled Xu Caihou, a former vice chairman of the Central Military Commission and a retired commander of the People’s Liberation Army. With the removal of Xu’s legal protections as a senior cadre, his case has been handed over to military prosecutors.
What has Malaysia anti-corruption campaign to show compared to these major anti-corruption developments in France, Philippines, Indonesia and China? Continue reading “No way Malaysia can catapult to “top 10 or 12” of Transparency International CPI without catching any “big fishes” like what is happening in France, Indonesia, Philippines and China”