Was Prime Minister Najib Razak aware of the allegations that the government’s crime statistics had been doctored when he made his pledge for a safer Malaysia, asked DAP parliamentary leader Lim Kit Siang.

Lim was referring to Najib’s Hari Raya message last week, in which the PM was reported pledging that“to enhance security in the country, assuring that all agencies responsible will be more effective in tackling crime” as reported in The Star on August 20.

“Was Najib aware of the doctored crime statistics in the GTP/NKRA reports, which caused him to single out a ‘safe Malaysia’ as the theme of his Hari Raya message last week, to try to assure Malaysians who have never felt so unsafe because nobody in Malaysia really believed or trusted in the official crime statistics about the fall in crime rates and street crime?”

Lim, in a statement today, said Najib’s pledge was “baffling” since “the assurance of a safe country is the most basic and fundamental duty of any functioning and successful government”.

Mocking the BN’s campaign and Merdeka Day slogan ‘promises fulfilled’, he said, “Why then the need to make such a pledge after 55 years of governing the country, unless Malaysia is no more as safe a country for its citizens, investors and tourists as in the past decades?”

The Ipoh Timor MP also slammed the cabinet for its “fifth day of thunderous and deafening silence” over last week’s open letter from an anonymous police personnel, who claimed that the department had doctored its crime statistics to portray a positive image.

He said the government’s refusal to comment on the letter would only lead the public to believe the authenticity of the claims.

The said letter comes at a time when the government had been patting itself on its back on successfully combatting crime, despite a public outcry that it was, on the contrary, escalating.