If Prime Minister Abdullah Abdullah Badawi is serious about weeding out corruption , he should initiate a move making the Anti-Corruption Agency answerable to parliament and vested with powers of prosecution.

This was how it was when ACA was formed in the 1960s under the stewardship of the late Harun Hashim. Then, the anti corruption agency of Hong Kong, ICAC, sent its personnel to Malaysia to learn from the ACA.

With the transfer of ACA from parliament to the PM's Department initiated by the former Prime Dr Minister Mahathir Mohamad in the early 1980s, the ACA has now become the tool of the prime minister.

If ACA is answerable to parliament, you would not hear the recent arrogant response from Entrepreneur Development Minister Nazri Aziz as reported in today's papers.

(Yesterday, Nazri announced that the ACA should not threaten to issue arrest warrants to cabinet ministers who have refused to give statements on case investigations, as members of the cabinet are ultimately employers of government officers in the ACA)

For Abdullah Badawi, with all his exhortation of trying to curb corruption, the ball is in his court to show his deed. Do not be like the saying " cakap tak serupa bikin ".