THE Immigration Department had the reputation as one of the most corrupted government agencies when Mustafar Ali took over as director-general in 2016.

In the past two years, his main challenge has been to remove this unwanted reputation and turn the department into an effective and professional unit, though he admits there is still work to be done before it can be called corrupt-free.

While sources told The Malaysian Insight that Mustafar will head the newly set-up National Financial Crime Centre (NFCC) in 2019, the former top Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission officer spoke about his war to clean up the department.

He admitted that there were a handful of immigration personnel who objected to his way of doing things and wanted to continue with their corrupt ways.

“There had not been any sabotage but there is this small group who wanted to enjoy what they had been doing before,” he told The Malaysian Insight.

One of the first things Mustafar introduced after taking over the Immigration Department was a new slogan to highlight the need for a transformation of behaviour, control and operations.

He said this somewhat allowed him to impress upon his staff not to condone corrupt practices, adding that there is room for improvement, including increasing the allowances given to immigration personnel.

“I don’t want to justify that they are corrupt because their salary is low but when compared with other government agencies, immigration personnel receive a smaller allowance. I think the allowance must be the same for everyone.

“We also want to strengthen the competency and training of our personnel so that they will automatically reject corruption.

“Although we have implemented so many measures, there are other things that we need to do. This is not an easy task. This is why there are some still involved in receiving bribery.”

Mustafar said under his watch, contracts for the various systems used by the department are managed according to the law.

The department had many vendors supplying different types of management systems to handle visa applications, registration of foreign workers, passports and so forth, he said.

He acknowledged that the department appears “friendly” to certain vendors by giving out contracts to them without any open tender.

“For example, many asked why we had allowed three vendors to deal with the registration of illegal foreign workers. Why didn’t the department handle this itself?

“I do not want to dispute any of this but that had already been in place when I came to this department. The contract was ongoing, so we concentrated on other areas.

“But when the contract expired on August 30 this year, we didn’t renew it. Also, no more registration of illegal foreign workers.”

Mustafar also made changes to the organisation structure and created several new posts to help streamline the job scope in the department.

“I met the chief secretary to the government and asked for the creation of additional posts to strengthen our enforcement, intelligence, investigations and prosecution and human trafficking.

“Once we have strengthened our internal structure, externally, it would be easier for us to do our job, not just to nab illegal immigrants but also those who trade in them.

“I also take part in operations to show my commitment,” he said.

The veteran civil servant also disclosed that the Immigration Department must cooperate with other agencies to ensure criminal activities are curtailed effectively.

“We do have issues with a shortage of personnel, assets and logistics. That’s our challenge.

“We try hard with our 15,000 personnel but it would be easier it we had the cooperation of other agencies.” – December 31, 2018.