ACA's Hands are Tied, says Nazri Aziz.

Did you read my previous blog about corruption and how local politicians seek to exclude "Conflict of Interest" as corruption?

Apparently, now there's another exception. Corruption is not corruption if no public funds are involved because it's all within the party/family.

According to Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz in the article ("ACA’s hands are tied")...

“Members are immune from action outside the party (for wrongdoings within the party). That’s my opinion. I may be wrong but I tabled the law (Anti-Corruption Act) in Parliament. That’s my understanding of it.”

“But the ACA can’t come in because this (money politics) has nothing to do with the public. It does not affect the public in the sense that it does not involve public projects or public funds.”

WRONG!

The ICAC in HK investigates commercial crime. No public funds involved there. They also investigate police misconduct, for example when police steal money left behind during drug busts. No public funds there... unless of course you're a drug dealer.

How can a technicality like that even purport to restrict the ambit of the ACA? It goes against spirit of the law, and it goes against the principles of natural justice.

Dictionary.com defines cor-rup-tion [kuh-ruhp-shuhn] as:

1. the act of corrupting or state of being corrupt.
2. moral perversion; depravity.
3. perversion of integrity.
4. corrupt or dishonest proceedings.
5. BRIBERY
6. putrefactive decay; rottenness.
7. any corrupting influence or agency.
8. debasement or alteration, as of language or a text.
9. a debased form of a word.

Not bad, you guys in UMNO and the govt score 7 out of 9.

—Synonyms 2. dissolution, immorality. 8. rot, putrefaction, putrescence, foulness, pollution, contamination.
—Antonyms 1–3. purity. 3, 4. honesty.

Again, the synonyms fit 100% and the antonyms don't fit at all.

“For example, in a family where you have 10 children and you have a ruling that the family must decide on things together, and the father gives one of his children RM1 and says ‘support papa, not mama’ is that corruption?” he asked. "I don’t think so, because there is no abuse of public funds here.

I'm sure that the mama will beg to differ, don't you?

“Corruption is the abuse of public funds. You must read it in the context of the law. You can’t take one section away. The law is all about public projects and funds.”

The law is all about justice, fairplay and moral obligations. Obviously, things you know nothing about.