A special committee will be set up next month to conduct a research on the proposal to enact a political party act to combat corruption among politicians.

The National Key Result Areas' (Nkra) Anti-Corruption Laboratory will set up the committee to identify a model of such an act in countries with similar democratic practices.

Laboratory head Hisham Nordin said, among the acts to be studied were those practised in Canada, United States, United Kingdom and Australia.

"We are still at the research stage to propose that a new political party act be enacted," he told reporters at the Nkra Open Day in Kuching today.

At present, he said all political parties were subject to the Registrar of Societies (ROS) Act and the Election Commission (EC).

He explained that ROS had the power to only take action against an errant candidate of a party and not the party itself, while the EC would only allow action to be taken against the candidate and not the party.

Hisham said the findings of the research would be submitted to the cabinet before it was tabled at the Dewan Rakyat.

Political parties financing

He said the research would also cover matters concerning the political parties' financial sources to implement its activities or purchase a building.

"Most of the people are wondering where the parties get their money from and many believe that the politicians depend on donations and contributions from contractors," he said.

Meanwhile, Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Idris Jala said he was satisfied with the public response received throughout the two-day NKRA Open Day.

"We have received many suggestions and comments from the public and we will try our best to improve the government delivery system especially under the six NKRA," he said.

- Bernama