Home minister wants army to police corrupt Malaysian borders
(MMO) – Citing the Special Branch, the NST said its report showed that 80 per cent of Malaysian law enforcement officers at the country’s borders were engaged in corruption.
Home Minister Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi is seeking for army personnel to replace law enforcement officers manning Malaysian borders to stem the scourge of corruption by smuggling syndicates.
Zahid said he will raise his proposal at the Cabinet meeting today for the army to “fully” take over Malaysian borders.
“It is high time for the army to be put in charge of the borders as it is not only about security, but also defence. It is the country’s first line of defence and I have always felt this way, even when I was defence minister.
“The issue of institutionalised corruption, where these law enforcement officers know the syndicate members well, must be arrested once and for all,” he was quoted telling local daily New Straits Times (NST).
Zahid also reportedly said he will raise the issue of fencing up Malaysia’s borders with its neighbours, claiming that the country was easily penetrable with wide “elephant lanes” instead of rat lanes.
Citing the Special Branch, the NST said its report showed that 80 per cent of Malaysian law enforcement officers at the country’s borders were engaged in corruption, with some purportedly also on the smuggling syndicates’ payroll instead of merely taking bribes.
The syndicates included those smuggling drugs, weapons and humans, NST said.
The report is based on the Special Branch’s 10 years of surveillance and intelligence gathering, and was conducted at border checkpoints and enforcement bodies such as the Immigration Department, Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency (MMEA), the Anti-Smuggling Unit (UPP) and the police’s General Operations Force.
