SHAH ALAM, 22 Apr: Even though the 13th General Election (GE-13) campaign has only entered its third day, former Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak has already violated his Election Integrity Pledge three times.
This was confirmed by the international anti-corruption body, Transparency International (Malaysia) who signed the pledge together with Najib last February.
According to the former Selangor Chief Minister, Tan Sri Abdul Khalid Ibrahim, the first offence was on 8 April where Najib announced that 725,000 government pensioners will receive the “1Malaysia Privilege Card”.
Previously, the card was only given to the police and military personnel only.
The second offence on 9 April, Najib announced the construction of a complex worth RM400 million in Perak, a joint venture with a company from China.
Meanwhile, on 18 April, Najib violated the pledge again when he announced the construction of 10,000 1Malaysia residential units for civil servants.
“His behaviour, together with Umno-BN, blatantly violated the pledge by announcing mega projects and programmes involving provisions of public funds even though the Federal Government is only a temporary administrator.
“TI has told us and confirmed that BN had violated at least three items from the pledge,” he said at a press conference held at the Selangor Exco Housing Complex here this morning.
On 20 February, Najib signed the pledge with the President of TI, Datuk Paul Low, to announce the commitment of the Federal Government to carry out a campaign with integrity.
According to Abdul Khalid, Najib’s actions as the primary leader of Umno-BN are regrettable.
“The treacherous act against the pledge is very different to the practice of the Selangor and Penang PR Governments.
“From the very beginning in 2008 until now, (PR Governments) prohibits the use of government assets with irregular procedure and to not use it to gain political votes,” said Abdul Khalid.
When answering a question, Abdul Khalid said that TI itself admits that the Selangor PR Government has implemented its administration with integrity since 2008.
This can be seen in the establishment and implementation of the Selangor Select Committee on Competency, Accountability and Transparency (Selcat) which meets every year in the previous term.
“I also ask companies (State Government) such as PKNS and Kumpulan Semesta to also sigh the ‘Integrity Flash’ which was implemented a few months ago,” he added.