In the face of the government's deafening silence, pressure is mounting on the authorities to rebut the allegation that the police have manipulated the crime index to gloss over the worsening crime rate.

In a statement today, DAP national publicity secretary Tony Pua dared the Performance Management and Delivery Unit (Pemandu) to declare that the crime statistics quoted by the government have been audited, verified and confirmed by international audit firm Pricewaterhouse Coopers (PwC) to be accurate, as claimed.

NONE “If no due diligence has been done by Pemandu or PwC on the data, then Pemandu is guilty of publishing inaccurate (figures) ...” Pua said.

“That would be the greatest irony, for Pemandu is committing the crime of misrepresentation and data fraud, specifically to cover up incidents of crime.”

Pua noted that Pemandu has, in its annual reports and public presentations, repeatedly emphasised that all statistics cited have been “audited”, “verified” and “confirmed” by an independent external auditor to stress the accuracy and validity of the numbers.

Pua cited the 2011 Government Transformation Programme (GTP) Annual Report produced by Pemandu that states: ‘PwC, was engaged in early 2010 and subsequently in 2011 to… validate that the information and data inputs used in determining selected reported NKPIs were in agreement with the information provided by participating ministries, agencies or departments. The respective NKPI calculations were also checked against the guidelines and formulae prescribed by Pemandu’.

The report went on to claim that ‘the audit report or more precisely the Agreed upon Procedures (AUP) exercise undertaken by PwC, the GTP’s data has been verified and confirmed’.

azlan The GTP Annual Report 2011 claimed that street crimes have been reduced by a “phenomenal” 39.7 percent while the overall crime index has also fallen by a very commendable 11.1 percent.

Hence, said Pua, the allegations by an alleged former police officer that the data for crime statistics have been systematically manipulated, has come as a complete shock.

‘Complete scam’

Pua was referring to a widely-circulated anonymous letter that claimed that the police have intentionally manipulated the crime statistics to satisfy the federal government that crime had decreased.

The writer claimed that burglary, robbery and "causing hurt" - cases of which run into the thousands - were categorised in such a way that such offences would be excluded from what the police refers to as "index crime", whose numbers are reported to the public.

This, claimed the writer, had deflated the national crime statistics to show a drop in the rate in line with the government's targets.

NONE If the allegations are true, said Pua - and given the lack of denial by the police, Pemandu, Home Minister Hishammuddin Hussein (left) and Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak nearly a week after the contents of the letter were published - then “Malaysians cannot but conclude that the glamorous crime statistical achievements published by Pemandu is nothing by a complete scam”.

“We would further like Pemandu or, if they so wish, PwC, to confirm if the latter has indeed verified the accuracy and validity of the crime statistics presented by the police to ensure that they have not been manipulated to present artificial achievements,” Pua added.