KOTA KINABALU: A Sabah MP says the government should allow public funding for parties to address the problem of political corruption.
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Tuaran MP Wilfred Madius Tangau said public funding for parties would even benefit PPBM, which is led by Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin.
“Many non-politicians do not realise the lack of public funding is one key driver of political corruption,” the Upko president said in a statement today in his capacity as chairman of the think tank Workable Initiatives for Secularism, Decentralisation, Openness and Moderation.
“However, if the prime minister ignores this call, state governments should consider introducing their own public funding.
“Selangor, Penang, Negeri Sembilan and even Sabah can lead by introducing their own state-level public funding for political parties, with smaller amounts than what Bersih 2.0 had proposed.”
Bersih had previously made three recommendations: RM123 million to be distributed among parties based on vote share; RM10 million to be distributed based on number of women MPs; and indirect funding including free or subsidised broadcast airtime, printing, postage and use of government buildings.
Tangau was commenting on the drop in Malaysia’s ranking in Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index from 51 in 2019 to 57 last year.
“I call upon all who want to fight corruption – the latest being Karangkraf Media Group chairman, Hussamuddin Yaacub, who launched Gerakan Sinar Rasuah Busters – to put public funding of political parties in the equation,” he said.
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He said party operations, from election campaigns to running of service centres and staffing and maintenance of offices, were expensive.
Without public funding, Tangau said, there could be four possible and negative consequences:
1) Parties may depend on personally rich leaders to pay bills, effectively making politics a “game of tycoons”.
2) Parties become beholden to private funders who may want some favour in policy decisions covering lucrative government contracts.
3) When in government, parties may abuse power and embezzle public funds to finance election campaigns. He cited the 1MDB scandal as a case in point.
4) Opposition parties that do not have rich leaders or generous business backers can be easily outpowered by government parties or well-oiled opposition parties, even if they have better candidates or better policies.
“In fact, this is also one trigger for some opposition lawmakers to change parties,” he said.
Tangau said that for every ringgit saved from public funding of political parties, a “fortune is lost through corruption, mismanagement and all other forms of leakages”.-FMT