FORMER top government officials are the target of an ongoing Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission investigation into alleged corruption and abuse of power in the Companies Commission of Malaysia, sources said.

It is learnt that MACC investigators found new leads and several names to look into following raids and seizures of evidence in the past month.

Aside from the ongoing investigation into a RM500 million corruption scandal involving a project given directly to a company, the anti-graft agency is also looking into the procurement of several CCM buildings in several states.

“Quite a number of issues have come up since we started our investigations. We still need more time to complete our investigations so that we can take simultaneous action against everyone concerned,” a source told The Malaysian Insight.

“We are investigating a number of people from CCM, some already pensioned while others still in service.”

MACC has, to date, conducted 10 raids in its investigations into allegations of power abuse and contract leakages, including direct negotiations, which allegedly resulted in losses to the government and the public being misled.

The commission has seized more than 90 boxes of documents in the raids, which started on January 9, homing in on the son of a senior CCM officer but he is not believed to be the main culprit.

The probe started on a RM500 million project allegedly given directly to a company without any open tender.

After that, the scope of the investigations extended to the procurement and purchasing of CCM buildings in several states, including Perak, Malacca and Sarawak, at a total value of more than RM94 million.

MACC is looking into the roles played by several high-ranking CCM officials and their family members, and now former officials as well.

Apart from private homes, MACC has so far raided two government bodies – the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission and CCM – and four companies, including an accounting firm in Bangsar South and a business consultancy in Sunway Nexis. A warehouse in Semenyih was also raided.

The raids started after a civil society group submitted a memorandum to MACC listing alleged wrongdoing, abuse of power and corruption at the agency in the implementation of high-impact projects.

The memorandum alleged that some projects were awarded to the same individuals and companies.

The allegations were raised in Parliament by Kinabatangan MP Bung Moktar Radin last November.

Among his allegations were flaws and weaknesses in CCM’s key projects, citing an example where CCM allegedly given a project directly to Formis Network Services Sdn Bhd without open tender.

The contract was for five years, with a mandatory five-year extension, resulting in losses to the government amounting to RM250 million. – January 29, 2019.