Civil servants made up the bulk of those arrested for accepting bribes between 2015 and June this year, the Dewan Rakyat was told today.
Citing statistics provided by the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission, law and institutional reform minister Azalina Othman Said said 2,965 civil servants had been detained for accepting bribes over the past decade.
In comparison, 1,101 people from the private sector were detained for the same offence, followed by members of the public (680), employees from GLCs (119) and politicians (31).
Azalina, however, said when it came to giving bribes, members of the public made up the highest number of arrests (1,061), followed by the private sector (511), GLCs (64), civil servants (47), and politicians (six).
She also said a majority of those arrested for giving and receiving bribes were aged 40 and below.
Azalina was responding to Khairil Nizam Khirudin (PN-Jerantut) who wanted a breakdown of those arrested for giving and receiving bribes in the last 10 years.
In November last year, MACC chief Azam Baki revealed that some 44% of the arrests made by the anti-graft agency involved civil servants.
Earlier this year Cuepacs, the umbrella body for civil service unions, revealed that some civil servants had been forced to accept bribes because of pressure from certain parties.
Its secretary-general Abdul Rahman Nordin said this when commenting on Malaysia’s unchanged score of 50 and 57th-place ranking in the 2024 Corruption Perceptions Index.
