NEW YORK, Sept 26 — Various institutional reforms have been undertaken to put Malaysia on a better footing, said Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad.
“The first thing we tried to do and have done is to strengthen the agency that is focused on corruption,” he said referring to the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission.
“We gave independence to that agency and they have access to all information needed so that they can take action against corrupt people.
“At this moment we don’t find any more of those corrupt practices that were rampant during the last regime,” he said to a question from the floor during the World Leaders Forum at Columbia University here.
Dr Mahathir said the next reform goal was to uphold the rule of law.
“We believe in the rule of law. In the past the law was bad and it was abused by the government.
“People were charged under laws that don’t relate to whatever crime they may have committed simply because they appear not to support the government,” he added.
The prime minister said his administration has also focused on better management of funds.
“Malaysia actually had been quite well off. We did not have financial problems for a very long time.
“But now we have this problem because the previous government borrowed RM1 trillion ringgit and to repay a loan of RM1 trillion is not easy.
“If you pay from the taxes that you collect then you will deprive other areas from being financed.
“What suffers is the development expenditure. We have to take money from development in order to pay off our debt and it’s going to be around for almost 30 years, unless of course we can find some means of reducing the debt.
“That is what we are trying to do. We are trying to track where the money has gone, the money that has been stolen,” he said.
