A STREET rally to pressure the government into arresting Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) Azam Baki is planned for January 22, with mobilisation taking place on Twitter.

The hashtag #TangkapAzamBaki appeared yesterday along with a poster of the chief commissioner with the words “Rombak SPRM” (Reform MACC). They have been widely shared.

The poster appears to be an advertisement for a January 22 event. The venue is Kuala Lumpur.  There are no further details on the poster.

A mixed group of young activists are behind the street rally, The Malaysian Insight has learnt.

The members asked to remain anonymous and the group also has no name. It is understood the members are from different organisations.

The spokesman told The Malaysian Insight the group is in the midst of organising the rally.

“There will be a street protest very soon because we feel that Azam Baki has taken us all for a fool. The rally will commence this month and we are arranging it,” he said.

“We will stay anonymous for the time being and will (reveal) ourselves when the right time comes,” he added.

He confirmed that the poster on Twitter was genuine.

“The poster is kind of a teaser to get the people excited. We hope to reach many more people in these few days,” he added.

Last week PKR youth members staged a protest over Azam in front of MACC headquarters in Putrajaya.

This follows the revelation that Azam had owned millions of shares in two companies in 2015 and 2016, while he was head of the MACC investigation unit.

Concerns were raised over whether he had declared the shares as required of a civil servant and the source of the funds to buy the shares.

Azam has explained that his brother had bought the shares using the MACC chief’s trading account, which meant they could have violated the regulations of the Securities Commission.

The MACC anti-corruption advisory board, an internal oversight panel, said last week it accepted Azam’s explanation and found him free of any wrongdoing.

This sparked more public anger, raising calls for the anti-graft agency to be placed under parliamentary oversight and for an independent investigation into the case.

The Securities Commission has said it will be questioning Azam.

The matter of Azam’s shareholdings was raised in parliament on December 14 by Sungai Buloh MP R. Sivarasa, who asked whether Azam had declared his alleged ownership of 2.15 million in Excel Force MSC Bhd and 1.93 million shares in Gets Global Bhd in 2015, and 1.02 million shares in Gets Global Bhd the following year.

Prior to that, a two-part report on Azam’s shareholdings was published online by researcher, Lalitha Kunaratnam, who has been sued by Azam for defamation.

On December 27, a member of another internal MACC oversight panel, Dr Edmund Terence Gomez, resigned his seat to protest the lack of action on a series of emails he had sent to the panel chiefs regarding Azam’s shareholdings.

In response, Azam said he had informed his superiors of the shares purchases in 2015, and that they had raised no concerns.

Azam also told the media that he would step down from his position unless the king ordered it. – January 14, 2022.