PKR today said the government should focus on fighting crime instead of managing how the public views crime.
PKR also disputed the figures given by PEMANDU, after the government’s efficiency unit had yesterday said that it spent only 0.75 per cent of its Government Transformation Programme (GTP) allocation for public relations exercises on crime.
“The rakyat demands action on crime and not perception management,” said PKR president Datuk Seri Dr Wan Azizah Ismail (picture).She accused PEMANDU of distracting the public from the bigger picture that the government’s “overwhelming objective... is to spend on reducing fear of crime”, insisting that 71 per cent or close to RM170 million of the nation’s 2012 budget was used for this purpose.
Putrajaya should seriously consider roping in an impartial third party to present the country’s real crime situation which is now under doubt, an opposition lawmaker said today.
“Tan Sri Musa Hassan has put the Najib administration to great embarrassment by openly accusing the authorities of ‘hiding facts’ from the public over the country’s crime rate,” Gobind Singh Deo (picture), the DAP MP for Puchong said in a statement, referring to the former Inspector-General of Police’s remarks to The Malaysian Insiderpublished today.The retired policeman had urged the federal government not to mask crime figures, pointing out that if crime was not on the rise, top-ranking officials and ministers would not need to hire bodyguards as the home minister, the current IGP Tan Sri Ismail Omar and the government’s efficiency unit, PEMANDU, were put on the defensive over a recent spate of high-profile reports of kidnappings, assaults and robberies in public areas and in broad daylight.
Musa had also suggested the government appoint a third party to conduct an independent review of the country’s crime rate and produce its own statistics, saying that he had roped in Universiti Sains Malaysia researchers to prepare crime statistics during his four years in office as IGP. He was succeeded by Ismail on September 13, 2010.
“The credibility of PEMANDU is now seriously in question. The government cannot sit back and remain quiet,” Gobind said.
He pointed out that Musa was not the only establishment figure to have acknowledged a spike in the crime rate, as Selangor Deputy CPO Datuk A. Thaiveegan has also referred to a surge in crime incidents in Malaysia’s most-developed state, which the latter blamed on the government’s decision to repeal the Emergency Ordinance last year.
The archaic security law allowed for detentions without trial of up to two years and was frequently used to rein in gang leaders but had been strongly criticised for its misuse, which had seen minors being remanded and locked up with adult suspects.
Despite the repeated assurances and statistics from the authorities, Malaysians, especially women, appear to be unconvinced and have grown more insecure when out on the streets.
Even the country’s expatriate community has weighed in on the issue and said they were increasingly fearful for their safety here, especially after the kidnapping of 12-year-old Dutch schoolboy Nayati Moodliar, who was snatched while walking to school earlier this year, hit global headlines.
In the latest high-profile crime to be reported today, a 60-year-old widow in Kuantan was found dead by her son, believed strangled by robbers who broke into her home.
Earlier this week, the mother of a Penang federal lawmaker was punched and robbed at knifepoint in a pre-dawn home invasion in George Town.
Other cases which made headlines in recent weeks include thieves hauling off RM1.17 million from several automated teller machines placed at a hypermarket in Wangsa Maju, a densely-populated surburb in the national capital, millions of ringgit worth of high-tech medical equipment being carted off from several hospitals in the Klang Valley, a carjacking and kidnapping of a Singaporean family in Johor and a Malacca clerk who died after she fell off her motorbike after being attacked by two men.
Former Inspector-General of Police Tan Sri Musa Hassan has accused the authorities of hiding facts from the public over the country’s crime rate, claiming that public security has now reached a “worrying stage”.
In an interview with The Malaysian Insider, Musa told the government that there was no need to mask crime figures, pointing out that if crime was not on the rise, top-ranking officials and ministers would not need to hire bodyguards.
Musa claimed the authorities were hiding facts about the rising crime rate. — Picture by Amin Iskandar
Musa, who has served in the Royal Malaysian Police for over four decades, was the country’s IGP for four years from 2006 before he was succeeded by Tan Sri Ismail Omar on September 13, 2010.
Despite the recent spate of assaults, robberies and kidnappings, the police, government efficiency unit Performance Management and Delivery Unit (PEMANDU) and the Home Ministry have held on to statistics showing that the country’s crime rate has dipped considerably since initiatives under the Government Transformation Programme (GTP) were put in place two years ago.
PEMANDU’s “Reduce Crime NKRA” unit held a media briefing yesterday to allay public fears on the issue and released fresh statistics showing that the rate dropped again in the first five months of the year by 10.1 per cent.
It had previously released figures to show that index crime had dropped by 11.1 per cent from 2010 to last year while street crime dipped 39.7 per cent in the same period.
The agency even appealed to the media for assistance to help correct the public’s perception of crime, urging for more “balanced reporting”.
But Musa appeared to dismiss the figures and suggested instead that the government appoint a third party to conduct an independent review of the country’s crime rate and produce its own statistics.
“During my time, I asked Universiti Sains Malaysia to prepare crime statistics,” he said.
At yesterday’s PEMANDU briefing, unit director Eugene Teh cited several surveys conducted by foreign pollsters, which he said further supports the agency’s crime statistics.
Among others, Teh pointed to the latest Taylor Nelson Sofres (TNS) survey which showed that public fear of crime in Malaysia dropped 3.9 per cent from 58.5 per cent in December 2009 to 54.6 per cent in May this year.
Musa suggested improvements in police operations as one of the measures to help reduce crime, saying the force could change its crime prevention methods to “intelligence procurement”.
“We need to get intel information first. If the information is good in terms of its procurement, and we work closely with foreign enforcers, then we would be able to ascertain the background of a person much earlier to monitor them.
“It is the same within our country... we need to monitor local gangsters and criminals,” he said.
The experienced former top cop added that a similar trend in rising crime was currently being felt in countries across the globe due to the economic crisis in Europe.
“Globalisation makes it hard for a country to prevent crime; it causes many foreigners, whose backgrounds we do not know, to enter our country... especially those from Nigeria.
“These are some of the reasons behind the rise in the crime rate here,” he said.
Despite the repeated assurances and statistics from the authorities, Malaysians, especially women, appear to be unconvinced and have grown more insecure when out on the streets.
The body of a half-naked man found in some bushes on the banks of a river in Ara Damansara near here yesterday afternoon is believed to be that of real estate agent Tang Yong Ching, 45, who was recently reported missing.
Petaling Jaya police chief ACP Arjunaidi Mohamed said the body, which had injury marks, was recovered following the arrest of two suspects, both foreigners, who were believed to linked to Tang’s disappearance since last Thursday.Police believed he was murdered based on the injury marks on the victim but the cause of death had yet to be established, he told reporters last night.“The first arrest was made on Saturday after one of the suspects, 25, tried to use a debit card belonging to the victim. The suspect had entered the country on a student visa but worked as a security guard in the Damansara area,” he said.He said the second suspect, a 20-year-old student, who was arrested here yesterday, led police to the body.Police also recovered a Toyota Innova MPV belonging to Tang following information given by the second suspect, he said, adding that based on interrogation of the two suspects, police believed Tang was killed over a business property deal that also involved other realtors.He added that the victim’s body was sent to the Kuala Lumpur Hospital for a post-mortem and that the case has been classified as murder.Tang was reported missing by his wife Ng Mooi Ning when he did not return home after leaving his house in Ara Damansara last Thursday afternoon to meet a client Even the country’s expatriate community has weighed in on the issue and said they were increasingly fearful for their safety here, especially after the kidnapping of 12-year-old Dutch schoolboy Nayati Moodliar, who was snatched while walking to school earlier this year, hit global headlines.In the latest high-profile crime to be reported, the mother of a Penang federal lawmaker was robbed at knifepoint in a pre-dawn home invasion in George Town.Other cases which made headlines in recent weeks include an ATM robbery at a hypermarket that saw about RM1.2 million carted away, a carjacking and kidnapping of a Singaporean family in Johor and a Malacca clerk who died after she fell off her motorbike after being attacked by two men.Following the string of ATM robberies, banks are also now mulling moving their ATMs located in malls, supermarkets, petrol and rail stations to alternative locations.The recent attempted attack on a high-profile target in a high-profile location — no less than Datuk Seri Najib Razak at the Prime Minister’s Office in Putrajaya — puts the debate on the perception that crime rates are rising in Malaysia to rest. Forget about the statistics and who has got it right or wrong or whether they have been obfuscated or not. The plain fact of the matter — as the above reported incident has shown — is that criminals have become bolder and that even the prime minister had better look over his shoulder lest he becomes part of the statistics.Crime is no longer confined to dark alleyways at odd hours of the night. It is increasingly happening in public places — car parks in malls have been a hot favourite recently — and in broad daylight.The incident at the PM’s Office happened during the day while security personnel were on duty. The 47-year-old man and his 28-year-old female sidekick, armed with samurai swords, managed to get within 100 metres of the prime minister — something even persistent journalists have trouble achieving. Whoever said that the pen is mightier than the sword?Why have criminals become bolder by the day (or night)?One reason put forth by Federal CID director Commissioner Datuk Seri Mohd Bakri Mohd Zinin was public apathy. He was quoted as saying that the crooks won’t be so brazen if the public were looking out for each other. The honourable Mohd Zinin definitely got it wrong on this one. His statement. In one fell swoop he passed the buck of law enforcement from his force to the people he is supposed to protect.With this type of attitude and public policies in place, which favour self policing, it is no wonder that a small town like Kuching with approximately 600,000 people and 150,000 homes has more break-ins per annum than the whole of Singapore with 5,000,000 people and 1,000,000 homes.These policies favour security companies with underpaid and ill-equipped security guards who do not have the expertise, training, physique, equipment or bravado to apprehend criminals. These foreign workers, sometimes even without proper documentation, lack the legitimacy to apprehend criminals let alone get into a struggle with them. Can you imagine a parang-wielding gangster staring down at a Bangladeshi guard in full gear and nothing else? You get the picture.To many Malaysians these are the people who protect them and their families when they enter their condos, office buildings, mall car parks and other public spaces.Isn’t it time policies were put in place to limit self policing and to ensure that the police themselves do the job currently provided by private security companies. We need more well-built men in blue with proper training, with guns and with a mean look to scare the living daylights out of these crooks. Security just can’t be handled by labour agencies and labour agents out to make a quick buck.
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