MACC should now investigate corruption in road contracting work in Malaysia
Well, another day, another natural disaster. This time, a landslide hit the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Committee (MACC) Academy and destroyed its entrance as well as guard house. Now this begs the question, should the MACC investigate corruption in road contracting work in Malaysia and the awarding of contracts like this now?
The massive landslide occurred at Jalan Duta, where, obviously, the MACC Academy is located and the disaster, which affected 120 square feet of the academy’s main entrance and guardhouse, is believed to have happened at around 1pm yesterday on 25 April 2023 is a devastating disaster for sure, so how did it happen?
Moreover, about five personnel from the Sentul district police headquarters were stationed roughly 300m from the affected disaster area, and barred members of the media from entering the landslide area, citing safety concerns and rightfully so, as this whole situation could have easily gotten much uglier.
According to a statement by the Kuala Lumpur Fire and Rescue Department, 76 individuals have been evacuated from the MACC Academy and thankfully, no injuries were reported. The statement also noted that there were eight firefighters on the scene. That was definitely a close call.
Officers from the Kuala Lumpur City Hall and Public Works Department are also conducting slope monitoring works. Sentul Police Chief, Beh Eng Lai, also later accompanied reporters to the incident scene, where approximately 10 police officers and firemen were on duty.
On top of that, the Police Chief also added that of the 76 individuals evacuated from the area, 38 of them were staff members from the nearby Malaysian Institute of Integrity.“The situation is currently under control. We cannot say yet whether the vicinity of the compound is stable.” He stated.
He also assured that investigations into the cause of the disaster are underway and also later informed reporters that initial forensic findings by PWD indicate that a likely cause of the landslide was a broken underground pipe. Surely, the MACC would have made sure that more quality would have gone into its own building, right?
Noting that the department had found evidence of a broken pipe at the scene, Beh also said that this could have contributed to water pooling and led to the eventual landslide. Unfortunately, the skies darkened shortly after signaling heavy rain and before that could exacerbate the landslide, the media was instructed to leave.
This means that, sadly, all we can do now, until we get more information, is just speculate, and I opt to just wait to find out more but I will say that I sincerely think that this kind of shoddy work is more common than it should be all over Malaysia and I strongly think that the MACC needs to look into it for all our safety.
We got all this from The Vibes and their full article is linked here. Thank you The Vibes for the information and images.\
