MAY 5 — The Enforcement Agency Integrity Commission (EAIC) was established to address issues of integrity among enforcement agencies which were seen to be wanting in certain areas. It seeks to improve integrity among 21 law enforcement agencies to boost public confidence in their staff.

Last month on April 2, in an exclusive with Sinar Harian, EAIC CEO Norhayati Ahmad told the Malay-language daily newspaper that of the 6,683 complaints the commission received, only 1,113 cases were investigated and resolved.

About two years earlier in December 2020, in another exclusive with the same, EAIC chairman Tan Sri Mohd Sidek Hassan admitted that enforcement by the commission was lacking. He said the commission was unable to ensure integrity was practised in the 21 enforcement agencies, as the EAIC had only 78 staff members and an annual budget of RM8 million.

"So, that is not possible. We have to work with other agencies, especially those under our purview,” he was quoted as saying.

"The police force itself has 130,000 staff. With EAIC’s 78 staff, how can we oversee 130,000 people?” he added.

Four months later, Mohd Sidek told reporters after officiating the EAIC’s 10th-anniversary and 2020 EAIC excellent service awards that even if the EAIC "is enlarged tenfold, to 780 people or a budget of RM80 million a year, we will still have the issues we face now.”

So, there is already a good reason not to add the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) to the 21 agencies, involving more than 210,000 employees, under the EAIC.

It is therefore baffling that Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department (Law and Institutional Reform) Datuk Seri Azalina Othman Said, in announcing the establishment of a Pro tem Committee to look into strengthening the EAIC, should say that the "Pro tem Committee will, among other things, study the need to include the MACC as one of the enforcement agencies listed under EAIC’s supervision.”

The Pro tem Committee was agreed to by the Cabinet on April 19, 2023.

By Mohd Sidek’s own admission, the EAIC needs strengthening, but not by ‘enlarging’ the number of enforcement agencies in its list.

Section 1(5) of the EAIC Act 2009 exempts the MACC from the EAIC’s supervision — for good reasons, it is said. The MACC already has its own independent oversight bodies, five in total.

The five bodies are the Special Committee on Corruption which consists of seven Members of Parliament, the Anti-Corruption Advisory Board, the Complaints Committee, Operations Review Panel and Consultation and Corruption Prevention Panel.

Why the need to add the EAIC as the sixth oversight body?

Having said that, there are good reasons to reform the MACC. This despite the commission having been established under the MACC Act 2009 as an independent commission and Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim saying in Parliament in the Dewan Rakyat that the MACC is already "an independent body.”

Independence, I wrote, should be secured, among others, by giving the MACC chief security of tenure.

The appointment of the MACC chief should be by the Yang Di-Pertuan Agong on the recommendation of the prime minister after the recommended candidate has been approved by a Parliamentary Select/Joint Committee.

The MACC will thus be overseen by a parliamentary committee. This was what Azalina said two months ago that the government was ready to listen to such a proposal.

Strengthen the EAIC by all means, but reform the MACC as well.

* This is the personal opinion of the writer and does not necessarily represent the views of Malay Mail.