Who's to blame for AmBank murder?

MP SPEAKS The murder of Norazita Abu Talib during a bank robbery shocked the nation. She was brutally shot in the face by a security guard who was said to possess a fake identity card.  The senseless death of the AmBank officer late last month has opened yet another can of worms pertaining to our worsening crime situation. 

Why did Norazita have to die like that? Let me be blunt here; yes, we can blame Umno leadership for refusing to reform the police and for allowing cronies to run security firms.

There’s no need to cringe or get upset. Please bear with me. The facts are all there.

Criminals everywhere, yet they are looking for communists

While the crime rate is high and the situation is said to be worsening - murder, rape and other violent crimes - the Umno-led Barisan Nasional government is still obsessed with the communists!

Our police are still operating in the Cold War mode as if the communists are still lurking around the corner, notwithstanding the fact that Chin Peng is long gone and that the Haatyai Peace Treaty between the Malaysian government and the Communist Party of Malaya was signed in December 1989. That was 24 years ago.

Yet Budget 2014 still allocates money to hunt for communists. (risikan keselamatan  “menjamin keselamatan negara melalui aktiviti risikan keselamatan secara sulit dan terbuka keatas ancaman komunis, anasir anasir subversif dan pelampau, perisikan, pengintipan dalam negeri dan ancaman luar negara. – page 644).

As I said before, the crime rate is high. Never mind the police and the government statistics that suggest otherwise. Fear of crime drives demand for private security protection. In Kuala Lumpur, we can see the mushrooming boom gates and guardhouses in middle class housing estates in recent years.

Hence, I’m dumbfounded to read Home Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi’s Parliamentary reply to Er Teck Hwa, MP for Bakri, that the crime rate has fallen by half between 2008 and 2013. Is he actually referring to Malaysia?

While there are enough police personnel per capita (approximately 110,000 police to 28 million people), only a fraction is involved in direct crime fighting. Omnipresence of the police and quality investigation are two most important factors, yet half of the police personnel are in management, logistics (12 percent), Special Branch (5 percent), riot police (3 percent), and the communist-fighting paramilitary unit General Operation Force (15 percent)!

No reforms, more crimes, more overworked crime fighters

As a result, police patrols are not adequate enough. Crime investigators are overstretched and overworked. Only less than 10 percent of the police force are in the Criminal Investigation Department, with only about 2,000 are ranked inspectors and above with full authority to investigate. The heavy workload forces many to sleep on old sofas in ill-equipped police stations. My sympathy is with them.

The things you learn from CSI - whether in the TV series or in real life in some developed and recently developed countries - won’t apply here for obvious reasons. Science and intelligence based investigations are a rarity in Malaysia. Confession based investigation is still the order of the day.

Former prime minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi announced the formation of a royal commission headed by former Chief Justice Dzaiddin Abdullah in December 2003 and a comprehensive 600-page report was submitted in May 2005. I guess the thick book is gathering dust right now.

And here come the private security firms

With high crime incidences and the refusal of the BN government to shift police priority from fighting communists to crime busting, it’s no surprise that there is a huge ready market for private security protection.

At a glance there’s nothing wrong with it. Private security firms must be highly controlled and firmly regulated. Once upon a time, it was extremely difficult for anyone to obtain a licence to operate a private security firm.

In October 2011, the Home Ministry informed me in a Parliamentary reply that there were 584 security firms registered with the government. Two years later, the number jumped to 751.

The 2011 parliamentary reply claimed that there were 160,000 Malaysian security guards and another 1,049 Nepali former soldiers.

Now The Star reported (on Nov 6, 2013) that there are 400,000 security guards, of whom 150,000 are illegal foreign workers!

According to the Parliamentary reply (on the conditions for issuing licences to security companies) ... it seems that it’s not that difficult to set up a private security service firm in Malaysia.

TOMORROW: Who but Umno created private security culture?

LIEW CHIN TONG is Member of Parliament for Kluang and DAP national political education director.