THE Kuantan Sessions Court today sentenced an engineer from the Public Works Department to a month’s jail and fined him RM210,000 on a charge of accepting bribes amounting to RM42,000 in 2013.

Judge Ahmad Zamzani Mohd Zain meted out the punishment after Shaiful Azman Taha, 45, pleaded guilty when the case was re-mentioned today.

The court also ordered the accused to serve the jail sentence starting today and ordered the accused to serve another 10 months in jail if the fine was not settled.

Shaiful, who was then serving as the director of the contractors services centre for registered government contractors was charged with accepting the amount at his house in Taman Pelindung Jaya, between 3 and 4pm on December 21, 2013 from Hamdan Mat Hasan, a technician from Syarikat NZH Murni Enterprise.

The centre’s main objective is to provide assistance to Bumiputera contractors who wish to tender for public sector projects while the centre classifies contractors by classes F to A.

The bribed amount to the accused was to serve as an inducement to issue a Bumiputera contractors certificate to the company.

The accused was charged under section 17(a) of the Malaysian Anti Corruption Commission Act 2009, which provides for a maximum jail sentence of 20 years and a fine of five times the bribed amount or RM10,000 whichever is higher.

On February 14, 2018 the accused was charged in the same court but he claimed trial to the charges.

Earlier, Shaiful’s counsel, Mohd Baharuddin Ahmad Kassim, pleaded for a lighter sentence because he has been suspended from his job and receives only RM2,500 a month, and he has two school-going children.

Baharuddin added that Shaiful was also going through serious depression after losing his privileges as a civil servant after having served for 14 years.

However, MACC deputy public prosecutor Rifah Izzati Abdul Mutalif urged the court to mete out punishment commensurate with the offence since his action as a civil servant had tarnished the image of the service. – Bernama, January 26, 2023.