PUTRAJAYA is using the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) as a political tool to destroy Perikatan Nasional, Bersatu secretary-general Hamzah Zainudin said yesterday after the anti-graft body recently froze two of Bersatu’s bank accounts.

MACC was also called out by PKR deputy president Rafizi Ramli last November for being a political tool to investigate him but not taking any actions against cases of corruption that he had revealed earlier, including alleged wrongdoing involving the littoral combat ship scandal.

Rafizi had revealed in a ceramah that his office was “raided” by MACC, with his staff being questioned for up to seven hours.

The “raid” was confirmed by MACC, with the anti-graft agency saying that it seized some documents from Rafizi’s office as part of its investigation into his asset declaration regarding his data analytics company Invoke Solutions Sdn Bhd.

Last April, it was DAP leader Lim Guan Eng who questioned whether MACC was a political weapon used or misused by vested political interests.

He had called on then prime minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob to stop MACC from carrying out selective investigation.

“Will Ismail Sabri rein in a rampaging MACC conducting spurious and politically calculated investigations, which allows the corrupt to escape unpunished while punishing the honest and upright?” Lim asked in a statement.

Last June, the Pakatan Harapan presidential council called on the then government to step up the process of tackling corruption by placing MACC under parliamentary oversight.

Even Dewan Negara President Rais Yatim had called for MACC to be legally supervised by parliament.

The MACC chief then was, and still is, Azam Baki. Azam had then asserted that MACC was already independent and that there was no need for the anti-graft agency to come under parliament.

Given the newest attack on MACC, will the unity government make good the call to place the agency under parliament? – February 2, 2023.

* Hafiz Hassan reads The Malaysian Insight.

* This is the opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insight. Article may be edited for brevity and clarity.