By Debra Chong, Assistant News Editor | UPDATED @ 01:36:51 PM 16-07-2012
The Malaysian Insider
KUALA LUMPUR, July 16 — Only a paltry eight per cent was set aside for the police to investigate crime despite Putrajaya raising the annual security budget to RM6.3 billion this year, amid growing safety concerns from the public.
Citing the Budget allocation for 2010, 2011 and 2012, opposition lawmaker Liew Chin Tong today called on the authorities to review the police budgetary arrangements to better fight crime.
“Budgetary figures of 2010, 2011, and 2012 show that the Najib administration is more interested in using the police to maintain power than to fight crime,” he said in a statement today.
The police was given an allocation of RM4.5 billion in 2010, RM5.8 billion in 2011 and RM6.3 billion in 2012 respectively, he noted, saying that the budget for the men in blue grew by RM1.8 billion or 40 per cent between 2010 and 2012.
The DAP MP for Bukit Bendera pointed out that the police were given a whopping RM1.68 billion to tackle internal security and public order compared to RM5.04 million set aside for them to investigate crime this year.
“While Internal Security and Public Order includes the traffic police and border patrol, it essentially deals with protecting the government rather than protecting the people,” Liew said.
He noted that RM3.81 million of the total annual allocation was set aside for police intelligence work, which is handled by the Special Branch (SB) division.
“A ‘spy’ agency like the Special Branch is not needed in a democracy,” the lawmaker said.
“In the context of the heightened crime situation nationally, it is high time for the nation to examine the priorities of the police through its budgetary arrangements,” he added.
The biggest chunk of the police budget, 40 per cent or RM2.5 billion, went towards its management while another 15 per cent or RM9.42 million was taken up by logistics.
Only one per cent of the RM6.3 billion overall Budget for this year, a sum totalling RM82.2 million, was fixed for the police to tackle commercial crimes.
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.
In recent weeks, thieves have been reported 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.
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, a 60-year-old widow in Kuantan was found dead by her son, believed strangled by robbers who broke into her home, while the mother of a Penang federal lawmaker was punched and robbed at knifepoint in a pre-dawn home invasion in George Town last week.
DAP ally PKR has demanded the government redirect the SB towards fighting crime instead of spying on the public, telling a press conference on July 3 that the police intelligence unit had produced 382,000 reports on the political activities of Malaysian citizens and conducted 351,000 security clearance checks in 2010, based on the allocation for the force in Budget 2012.
But the authorities have defended their statistics which they say show the crime rate has been dropping, putting Malaysia as one of the top 20 most peaceful countries in the world based on the latest Global Peace Index (GPI).
Last Saturday, Home Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein accused opposition parties of taking advantage of issues which were of concern to the people, especially on the crime rate, for their political mileage with the 13th general election due soon.
#1 by negarawan on Monday, 16 July 2012 - 3:24 pm
The PDRM has been corrupted by UMNO, to serve UMNO and not the rakyat! UMNO is white-washing the crime statistics, but the rakyat is not easily fooled. The biggest criminal in the country is UMNO!
#2 by Godfather on Monday, 16 July 2012 - 3:59 pm
Their appetite must be satisfied first – hence the number allocated for “management”.
#3 by Godfather on Monday, 16 July 2012 - 4:09 pm
No wonder the probe on Saifool was not professionally done…
#4 by yhsiew on Monday, 16 July 2012 - 4:13 pm
Such crap management has jeopardized public security.
#5 by drngsc on Monday, 16 July 2012 - 5:20 pm
Friends,
Please notice that we must distinquish between the Police leadership and the rank and file. I believe that the rank and file police are trying under extremely difficult conditions to do a good job and earn their pay. However, looks like the culprit is the Police leadership, who have sold out the Police and the country. And because UMNO cannot trust the rank and file Police to follow them, UMNO now have their own dirty tricks department almost like a samseng group with “unofficial official” status.
Please let us support the rank and file Police and work to change the leadership in the Police.
We must change the tenant at Putrajaya. GE 13 is coming. If there are no significant electoral reforms, first to Bersih 4.0, then to GE 13, then to Putrajaya.
Change we must. Change we can. Change we will.
#6 by sheriff singh on Monday, 16 July 2012 - 6:42 pm
We are the ‘safest’ country in ASEAN so no need so much money to investigate ‘so few’ cases.
#7 by Loh on Monday, 16 July 2012 - 7:25 pm
///The government needs to only govern. Laws are passed by Parliament, the lawmakers. Then the government machinery implements and enforces these laws. And that is where the role of government ends. The government must not dictate how we think. We must be free to think the way we want to think and lead the life we want to live. The government must not decide how we live our lives.
As what Voltaire said in ‘The Social Contract’, “Man is born free, but today he is everywhere in chains.” Basically, man creates his own prison. We imprison ourselves.
Government, in particular the Malaysian government, is about control. Religion is also about control. Thus, in Malaysia, we have two groups that are trying to control us — the government and religion. And this is what Malaysian politics is all about, control by the government and religious control, in particular in matters concerning Islam.
Hence, religion is heavily embedded in Malaysian politics, as it used to be in the west 200-300 years ago. And Malaysia is ‘one up’ on the west. We have race as a third element in Malaysian politics. Thus we have a government that tells us it knows best what is good for us and everything that we say and do must take religion and race into consideration.
A fourth element in Malaysian politics is the Monarchy, as it was in the west 200-300 years ago. We still have laws that make it a crime to speak out against the Monarchy, or what the Malaysia government would consider as ‘inciting hatred against the Monarchy’.
So we end up with a control-freak system of government with race, religion and the Monarchy as factors that determine what we can and cannot say and do. And if we oppose any one of these we will end up in jail. (Remember the three Rs, race, religion and Raja-raja, the stuff that Perkasa is made of?)
——
So, as I said, it is not just about electoral reforms and about voting in a new government. It is not just about voting in a corrupt-free (or lesser corrupt) government. It must also be about political reforms. And Malaysian politics sucks. We shall just be exchanging one control-freak government for another control-freak government, albeit a less corrupted one.
We need to be free. Currently we are not free even if we change the political party in power. And Pakatan Rakyat has not promised us any changes other than lesser corruption. Reducing or eliminating corruption is just the first step. It is only the beginning. But currently we are treating that as if this is the end game.
That should not be the end game. So Pakatan Rakyat needs to tell us what the end game is going to be. At the moment that is not clear and even Anwar Ibrahim, the ‘Prime Minister-in-waiting’, does not dare tell us.///–http://malaysia-today.net/mtcolumns/no-holds-barred/50619-the-age-of-romanticism-enlightenment-and-reason
RPK looks for a complete change in the way government functions in the country. That is what most Malaysians hope for. Unfortunately, the alternative available to us now cannot reach that goal in one step. The question then is should we wait for a perfect replacement before we throw out the present known devil? If we don’t we are not even able to take the first step in a long journey. There is a Chinese saying one might have to go knowingly approach the path of death to survive. Thus even if it is death-like to choose Pakatan Rakyat, we have to make that choice so that a change can take place. There should be a new beginning rather than keep threading on the old path which accelerates to to death.
#8 by monsterball on Monday, 16 July 2012 - 8:15 pm
Cops are paid to protect UMNO b party and their politicians……..period.
We are not important.
#9 by undertaker888 on Tuesday, 17 July 2012 - 7:57 am
PDRM=polis diarah rosmah mansur? Polis di raja mamakthir?
#10 by Kampong Orang on Tuesday, 17 July 2012 - 1:48 pm
You could see they are short sighted in many areas. They have not reformed Anti Corruption yet. They are afraid to be caught.
They also short sighted in allowing hand phones to be able to brought to schools. WHO has openly informed Cell phone could raise cancer risk:
http://thechart.blogs.cnn.com/2011/05/31/6-tips-for-minimizing-cell-phone-radiation/?hpt=hp_t2
#11 by Kampong Orang on Tuesday, 17 July 2012 - 2:17 pm
Ir Dr.Wee Ka Siong: A transportation PhD studied at UTM, looks like not suitable for being deputy minister of education. He should be transport minister, like Ling Liong Sick.