August 18, 2012
Believe It or Not: MACC is one of the most esteemed of its kind, says European Partners Against Corruption President
by Bernama@http://www.thestar.com.my
The Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) has won praise from a prominent international anti-corruption figure who described it as one of the world’s most esteemed of its kind among the international community.
By the same token, MACC Chief Commissioner Datuk Seri Abu Kassim Mohamed is also one of the most recognised and esteemed among anti-corruption experts and the international community, says Martin Kreutner, the President of European Partners Against Corruption network (EPAC).
Abu Kassim is a member of the INTERPOL Group of Experts on Corruption (IGEC) and executive committee member of the International Academic Advisory Board of the Vienna-based International Anti-Corruption Academy (IACA).
Kreutner, chairman of IACA, is currently visiting Malaysia.He told Bernama
that IACA would soon sign a memorandum of understanding with MACC to establish a framework of cooperation for its first International Masters Programme in anti-corruption under which part of the programme would be conducted at the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Academy (MACA) here.
MACA also conducts some international programmes and is the world’s first anti-corruption academy. The 24-month Masters Programme for anti-corruption professionals, police officers, judges and other enforcement agency officers, will be launched on Dec 9 to coincide with World Anti-Corruption Day.
It is the first full-pledged programme on the global corruption studies, addressing corruption from various perspectives and will have participants from all five continents and all regions.
Kreutner said it would not only incorporate the perspective of corruption and the law but also the perspective of corruption and science, corruption and security, corruption and politics and economics.
“The modules will reflect the common understanding and international cooperation in fighting corruption which has become very important and therefore we place strong emphasis on international cooperation,” he said.
Kreutner, a former head of the Austrian Anti-Corruption Commission, said the Arab Spring movement that toppled a number of Arab regimes over the last two years, was an example where because there was no political will from the top to combat corruption, the people had resorted to the revolutionary approach.
“One of the key elements of the Arab Spring movement was that the people had had enough of corruption. There is obviously a very strong understanding among the people that they didn’t want to be treated unjustly”.
He said the fight against corruption internationally had made vast improvements over the last decade with the United Nations Convention Against Corruption already adopted in the various regions.
Kreutner disclosed that when two heads of state in the Arab region had to step down at the height of the Arab Spring movement, it took only 30 minutes to have their illegal assets frozen in safe havens.
“If it had happened 10 years ago, it would have taken 30 months, if this had 
happened 25 years ago, some safe haven would say “bank secrecy, no information. Period. I think there is improvement, positive improvements, success stories but at the other end, let’s be frank, Rome wasn’t built in a day.
“We also need to struggle in the future and it would also be an uphill battle. But there is hope at the end of the day. Interestingly, it’s the countries of the so-called developing world that are at the forefront and mean business.”
Asked on the educational approach to combat corruption, billed as the world’s second oldest profession, he said countries need to go into the inter-generational approach, starting with addressing children and youngsters.
“When I went to school and university where I studied law, corruption wasn’t mentioned a single time. Only when I specialised in criminal law, corruption was one issue, among many.
“I think it is very important, within the chapter of education, to raise awareness also among the people that this is not a small sum and it costs billions and billions a year to the country.
“Ultimately, corruption is against human rights. And corruption is the opposite of equity and equality. In this context, fighting corruption is also about the rule of law and good governance,” he added.
Kreutner said there would always be corruption in the future and efforts should be concentrated on gradual improvements and the need to go for the long-term perspective.
“If the politician or a manager promises you that he can eradicate corruption within half a year, with most due respect, most likely he is a liar. I’d rather see the glass half full than half empty,” he said.
Herr Martin Kreutner, the President of European Partners Against Corruption (EPAC), is ignorant of the fact that MACC is a tool used by the Government to prey on Opposition politicians, whistleblowers and others. So he is very generous to the MACC.
I don’t know what he is doing on MACC Advisory Board. See the connection…loo tolog gua, gua tolong lu. He is doing Abu Kassim a favour. MACC needed such a boost to its battered image and Herr Kreutner came to its rescue.
The truth is that MACC has lost public confidence. Yes, Abu Kassim is an expert on catching small fish.He has failed to explain why he has not been able to implement the recommendations of the Teoh Beng Hock Royal Commission and why he has yet to tell us what is happening to those officers who were implicated in the tragic death of Teoh Beng Hock. Abu Kassim is also silent on the death of Ahmad Sarbani.I have also written extensively on the cases of Dato Ramli Yusuff and Lawyer Rosli Dahlan, which clearly demonstrates that MACC is a failure.Kevin Morais and his associates who fabricated evidence against them are protected by MACC.–Din Merican
What has gotten into this fella’s head huh? I feel he’s been fed too much ketupat, lemang and rendang by Abu Kassim.
Din.
If Najib is serious fighting corruption then make MACC answerable to Parliment,like in Indonesia,than to him.Appointment of MACC chief is also by Parliment.Then we can catch many Ikan Yu .
I would trust over the words of an international entity rather than the words of unknown people.
One of the courses probably involve throwing suspects out of the 14th floor…
What happen to all these European heads? Absolutely disgusting!!!Know nuts about Malaysia and yet….OMG. Just unbelievable!!!
Why a story from Twilight Zone? Unbelievable!
Incredible but hardly surprising a revelation.
It’s despicable how low these two bodies, IACA & MACA, will sink into just to promote their money making ventures.
The irony is not lacking though, that MACA has the potential to play Lucifer’s role, a towering beacon, to lure in all the corrupt law enforcing agencies to submit their candidates for enlightenment.
Herr Martin Kreutner, the President of European Partners Against Corruption (EPAC), is ignorant of the fact that MACC is a tool used by the Government to prey on Opposition politicians.
WHAT AN IGNORANT FOOL !!!
I always thought Germans are smart people. I have changed my mind. This chap must have been schooled by the former East German security forces where intimidation of democratic opposition is considered an ESTEEMED duty.
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Herr Kreutner is an Austrian who is here looking for consulting business from MACC!–Din Merican
http://diepresse.com/home/politik/innenpolitik/767223/Kreutner_War-zum-Schnupperjagen-bei-Mensdorff
http://derstandard.at/1263705400148/Oberste-Korruptionsbehoerde-Martin-Kreutner-verlaesst-das-BIA
Kreutner was eased out as Head of Department for corruption in the Ministry of internal affairs(Austria, a tiny dot with mega-ego). he was accused of taking bribe in the form of hunting outings from weapon lobbyist Mensdorf, and involvement in irregularities in the purchase of police digital communication devices where a file went missing.
he said he was abused by the politicians and media as Don Quixote, thus leaving the ministry after nine and half years fighting corruption in Austria.
http://www.iaca.int/IACAcontent/CV_Martin_Kreutner.pdf
birds of a feather flock together?
Completely blind…..
Stupid you are Kreutner, real stupid! An embarrassment to all Europeans! Can the German Embassy pls explain if he is speaking on behalf of the German government?
Reeperbahn
Can you please do us a favour and translate that German/Austrian article in full. So that we can quote that article to let other Malaysians know who this ignorant fool is. And thanks.
Dato Din, thanks for the correction. I can never differentiate an Austrian and a German after Hitler invaded that small piece of expensive real estate.
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Neither can I, Frank. Both speak German and share common history and culture yet they are different. Hitler is Austrian before he became the Fuhrer.–Din Merican.
Herr Martin Kreutner gives me goose pimples. Must have just arrived on planet Earth from the Dark Side of the Universe.
Employing prostitutes to entice and to bring down the PR Perak State Govt is of the most regarded and esteemed.
Better to recollect and read this piece below.
” MACC: The Destroyer of our Public Institutions ”
http://dinmerican.wordpress.com/2011/05/01/macc-the-destroyer-of-our-public-institutions/
You guys want democracy, well, that’s democracy for you. There is always someone with a different viewpoint incredulous though it may be. It is good that the bloghost sees it fit to occasionally highlight some of these views.
In the market place of ideas nothing is off limits. Liberty is to be valued both as an end and as a means.
Uninhibited free speech is essential to the operation of the political process. Get used to it folks.
A concept originating in the works of Militon: In a free society, it is essential that truth not be suppressed. The best way for truth to emerge is through competition with falsehoods in the free marketplace of ideas. To encourage that process, society cannot suppress ideas and speech about them.
Austrian? Nothing to do with it. Stern fellas with the aptitude for black humor.
But I think this flur is just a plain Autistic, who happens to love the sound of his own voice and perhaps his masters voice.
More importantly, anyone interested in getting an ‘international’ masters in anti-corruption from MACA (pronounced as “ma-chai”)? Banish the thought, cuz you’d unemployable outside MACC. Mana ada standard (MAS)?!
“I have also written extensively on the cases of Dato Ramli Yusuff and Lawyer Rosli Dahlan, which clearly demonstrates that MACC is a failure” — Dato Din Merican
On the contrary, MACC has been very effective in sending across the message that when you take on those who walk the corridors of power expect to face the full consequences of your action i.e. a ruined career and an interruption to family life, financial bankruptcy and endless pain and suffering.
A former senior cop was finally brought to his knees and made to feel that he’s fortunate to have what is his back – his pension and gratuity the fruit of his toil over the years of service. His counsel is left alone to carry on the fight and to take on the entire machinery i.e. a machinery funded by taxpayers. At the end he will be exhausted, depleted of all his financial resources. Finally battered and bruised he may see wisdom as the better part of valor.
So who says MACC is a failure?
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It depends on which side of the coin you are looking at MACC. From my perspective, it is a failure, that is it has not done its job as mandated. Corruption is rampant here and our politicians, their cronies and public officials are having a field day. Selamat Hari Raya, Bean from Kamsiah and I.–Din Merican
that’s democracy for you. – Mr Bean
Democracy is not an excuse to enable some to mouth nonsense especially by someone who knows little about MACC as a tool of the ruling political parties in Malaysia.
Such people is best exposed for what they are. To quote Reeparbahn, this ignorant fool was accused of accepting bribes….
The best way for truth to emerge is through competition with falsehoods in the free marketplace of ideas. To encourage that process, society cannot suppress ideas and speech about them.- Mr Bean
Tell that to Najib and his cousin.
It is an ideal even the US don’t subscribe to… look how the US wants to shut down Julian Assange of wikileaks. Even the country which professes so-called freedom of speech and democracy do not want to the truth to be in the marketplace of ideas.
All this talk about free speech is only relevant in seminar discussions and for graduate students to meditate on.
You got a better way for truth to emerge, frank? Democracy like the adversarial system of justice followed by common law countries is not perfect. But it is the best we got. It is better to let one criminal free to walk our streets than ten innocent men to be left languishing in jail for crimes they did not commit.
the austrians?
according to the malaysian consulate in Berlin ‘ but don’t fly through Vienna, those buggers are crazy!’
that was the answer to my question whether I should fly with a passport with only a few days validity.
the mamaks in malaysia are more melayu than the melayus themselves, just like that the austrians are more german than the german themselves. they speak an heavily accented german, unadulterated german is spoken mainly in the North and especially in Hamburg. the austrians survive chiefly through tourism and by copying german machines and selling them for one third the german price.
don’t take this buggers opinion serously, MACC needs it, its all about money making only.
TA is talking about Don Quixote, does he mean Kreutner? it is like those days where people dug up freshly buried corpses to ask for 4-Digit numbers,
alamak TA can you not give us some tips la!
And yes, you’re right. Even in the Land of the Free and Home of the Brave, speech can still be regulated if there are compelling state interests to serve. But to restrict speech you must pass the different levels of scrutiny – where there is compelling state interest it must pass the closest of scrutiny, in the case of mid-level speech it must pass only rational scrutiny. Then there is the unprotected speech.
I would rather take his statement as a pinch of salt. Heck even queen e would say something about najib when he visited her at Buckingham palace
Selamat Hari Raya, Bean from Kamsiah and I.– Din Merican
Selamat Hari Raya to both you love birds. I’m sorry but I shall forever be Scarlet Pimpernel to you. Salam to Datin who for a brief moment with her on screen (read: on blog) presence gave your blog the magic it needs. Cheers.
where there is compelling state interest it must pass the closest of scrutiny, in the case of mid-level speech it must pass only rational scrutin- Mr Bean
That’s also a classic communist and stalinist ideology. No different. Who determines what is compelling state interest and what is of public interest . Hillary Clinton or Julian Assange. Given the Yanks cannot be trusted with Guantanamo detention and their version of guilty before innocence, I put my money on Julian Assange.
The so called democratic loudmouths of the west, at the core, are hypocrites when it comes to free speech. They demand free speech from others, while they cherry pick what is free speech and what is not-allowed speech and incarcerate at times with with torture if they don’t like what they hear.
… and falsehood should not be allowed to be dispersed through the market place. It should be nibbed in the bud. Even the educated public, mostly blinded by religion and partisan politics are natural-born gullible suckers of falsehoods. Not that they are stupid, but their brains have been fixed-wired that they cannot think objectively… and lost all sense of mental and emotional balance.
They will die believing in falsehoods and in their livid imaginations..,, like having a Friend in the Sky ? Sky… ask the astronomers what the “sky” is composed of!!! A Friend in the Sky living in thousands and millions of LIGHT-YEARS away. Communicating with EVERY living person and soul through what? microwave emissions or laser light??? I wonder.
… and oh!! not forgetting the 72 Virgins somewhere out there in the sky … teasing with their sexually provocative stances at all of us using microwave emissions, laser lights, photons and with those little tumbling quarks passing through dark matter in space??? The more you think about it, the more it is indeed Alice in Wonderland.
Of course, it needs not be classified as falsehoods, but it is called Lying-Truths.
… and of course, one can say, it is alright if it is false as long as the person believes it is THE TRUTH.
Well, that is like seeing a totally naked man on the street and he tells everyone, “Do you like my new Pierre Cardin suit, I just got it tailor-made yesterday.”
However, having said all that, I agree with you. Mr Bean, that for any piece of information, it needs to be challenge in the market place for falsehood and for truth to emerge. But does not mean that falsehood be allowed to remain in the market place.
Once it is false, should be removed from the market place immediately. To allow falsehood to stay in the market place is abusing this evasive mantra called “free speech”.
Frank,
Especially when neo cons are very much alive in the states.
Ha ha … when I read about the MACA, it strikes me as hilarious. Just like its name change from the ACA to MACC, the presence of the first ever anti-corruption academy is supposed to signal things will be better in the fight against corruption!
If MACC is what this Austrian chap says it is, then Malaysia should be somewhere on the top of the world yearly corruption index.
If Abu Kassim is the man he is supposed to be, I would think he would start by cleaning up his agency starting with the TBH case
Alas, there is none so blind as those who cannot see..
While I am Singaporean, it makes me boil to see a “esteemed” agency failing in its job so miserably
Selamat Hari Raya Din and all who celebrate Hari Raya (Muslims and non-Muslims alike).
Huh Patrick,
You really think that Acca would be as good as cpib hah. I am really really choked. Even right now, Singaporeans such as yourself have been questioning over all the sex scandal going on within the government dept. in Malaysia, I guarantee you no eye see
Frank, you’re lashing out in all directions. Let me take you in one direction which is the subject of comment albeit lukewarm by readers as a result of a posting by our Dato – on the subject of criminal contempt.
The U.S. Supreme Court has considered a number of cases in which the orderly administration of justice has been offered as the compelling state interest for the regulation of speech based upon content.
Criticism of judges. When individuals have engaged in criticism of judges, the Court has applied the “clear and present danger” test to determine whether the individual’s First Amendment rights have been violated. The Court has YET to find a “clear and present danger” in any ANY case it has considered on this issue.
On the other hand courts in Malaysia are too willing to find one without ever having to formulate the test to be applied in cases when criticism of judges interferes with the orderly administration of justice.
Compelling State Interest in Regulation of Subversive Speech. The right of freedom of speech has been most severely curtained when it has been considered as an impairment to the social interest in national security. “National security” in this instance is defined broadly to include not only protection against external or foreign dangers but also the need to maintan an internal system of law and order and to preserve the basic structure of government.
All this incitement by UMNO and by MCA that Islam is under threat, that hudud law must be put under wraps and that Christianity will win converts from among the Malays would qualify as “incitement to imminent violence” – and over here will come under the category of unprotected speech and subject to content regulation,despite the First Amendment.
“Democracy is not an excuse to enable some to mouth nonsense especially by someone who knows little about MACC as a tool of the ruling political parties in Malaysia” — frank
Democracy is many things to different people. Language inciting violent actions should be distinguished from language that is merely offensive or provocative. An opinion that flies in the face of truth is neither.
Over here we can call the U.S. President by whatever name we care to label him him. Say anything about judges we care to say and not be hauled up for contempt. Other common law jurisdictions like Australia, N.Z. and of course U.K. are not prepared to offer only lip service to the common law doctrine of criminal contempt of court. Malaysia under UMNO is only too willing to abuse it for its own ends. It will be interesting to see what happens when tables are turned on them.
“Given the Yanks cannot be trusted with Guantanamo detention and their version of guilty before innocence, I put my money on Julian Assange.” — old frank
The Malaysian government without batting an eye lid would put you in jail for the most trivial of reasons and throw away the key and if you have no relatives trying to trace your whereabout. no one would know that you are missing. There have been cases. Try talking to those lawyers manning the Legal Aid Bureau.
Those at Guantanomo Bay are not on U.S. soil and have no rights that those who are, have under the U.S. Constituion. Still the U.S. government is sensitive and serious about criticism it receives. Democrats under Obama want them brought to mainland U.S. charged, tried and convicted and sentenced. The Republicans don’t want that.
Under the Republicans, scathing criticism of Mahathir in his arbitrary use of his country’s security laws has given way to admiration in the immediate post 9/11 years. The U.S. Patriot Act has borrowed a leaf from Malaysia’s Internal Security Act 1960.
As for Julian Assagne or “Ah Sang” – Assagne being anglicization of the Cantonese Ah Sang – unfortunately his disclosure of procedures used at Guantanamo exposes him to U.S. law on espionage. He will have to deal with that. Personally, I wish he has something on Najib and his ties with Altantuya.
Protected free speech??? A better word for it is “Conditional free speech”
And that STILL smacks of communist and stalinist ideology, whitewashed with semantics by the West’s loudmouth hypocrites of democracy.
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In Malaysia, it is no freedom after speech for us. But Mahathir can say outrageous things and gets a way with them. He has freedom of speech and freedom after speech. So is the head of PERKASA, Kataki Ib Ali.–Din Merican
The Malaysian government without batting an eye lid would put you in jail for the most trivial of reasons and throw away the key and if you have no relatives trying to trace your whereabout. no one would know that you are missing.- Mr Bean
Mr Bean, the point is Malaysia does NOT pontificate about free speech to others as the Yanks do. So, to bring in a comparison to Malaysia is a no-brainer.
his disclosure of procedures used at Guantanamo exposes him to U.S. law on espionage. – Mr Bean
Charging him for spying??? Because someone sent to him and he managed to get hold of videos showing Americans killing civilians in Iraq and publishing what he found and thus exposing American lies and half-truths about the Iraq war and the war in Afghanistan in the cables ( these are truths, not fiction)… and for that he is charged for espionage.
I thought you only hear that coming out of North Korea, Cuba or from Communist China. Instead it comes from a nation preaching FREEDOM OF THE PRESS.
Did Assange SPY on the US?? Unprotected freedom of the press??? You are eating too much American hot dogs, Mr Bean.