Reminder on bribery offence

SEREMBAN: Giving or receiving bribes is an offence. From now, this reminder must be incorporated in all government tender and procurement documents.

Treasury secretary-general Tan Sri Dr Wan Abdul Aziz Wan Abdullah said the reminder should be clearly stated in any document calling for bids from developers, contractors and consultants.

“We want to remind all those applying for government contracts and related work that giving or accepting a bribe is an offence,” he said in a Jan 28 directive to all ministry secretaries-general as well as heads of government agencies and departments.

This includes government-linked companies, agencies under state governments, local councils and statutory bodies such as the Employees Provident Fund, the Social Security Organisation and Bank Negara.

The directive should also be incorporated in all documents where bidding is done electronically.

Wan Abdul Aziz said this was decided by the Special Cabinet Committee on Government Management Integrity recently. “We need to incorporate the reminder as we want to go all out to combat graft,” he added.

Elaborating, he said the reminder should state that “any act to corruptly offer or give, solicit or receive any gratification to and from any person in connection with this procurement is a criminal offence under the Anti- Corruption Act 1997.”

“It means that any member of the public service who is offered a gratification must report this as soon as possible to the nearest Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission office, or lodge a report at any police station,” he said.

“Failure to do so is an offence under the same Act.”

Wan Abdul Aziz said disciplinary action would be taken against any government officer who fails to report graft.

Also, the party which offers a government servant gratification – be it the developer, contractor or supplier – will be blacklisted.

He said contractors or suppliers who make a claim for payment in relation to a particular procurement without doing any work or without supplying any goods would also be flouting provisions of the Act.

Those who supplied goods which were not to specification but still made a claim would also be committing an offence, he said.

“And any member of the public service who certifies the claim would also be committing an offence under the Anti-Corruption Act 1997,” he said.

The Star Online