Eight years have rolled on since the Dzaiddin police royal commission of inquiry (RCI), and yet to be fulfilled is a key recommendation for a greater proportion of personnel to be assigned to policing work, claims DAP.

According to its Petaling Jaya Utara MP Tony Pua ( below ), instead of complying with the 22 percent target proposed in the RCI report, the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) consists of only nine percent of the force.

NONE "The 2005 RCI report has recommended about 20,000 uniformed personnel or 22 percent of the force be reassigned to active core policing work. Unfortunately, this recommendation has gone unheeded by the Home Ministry.

"Over the past eight years, the CID has comprised barely nine percent of the police force - unchanged from before.

"In startling contrast, 41 percent of uniformed police perform management functions, while 31 percent are tasked with internal security and public order duties, such as the Federal Reserve Unit (FRU), the Light Strike Force, as well as the General Operations Force," he said in a statement.

He added that in 2010, official figures show that 733,327 reports and security checks by the Special Branch - but only 211,645 criminal investigation papers opened - indicated a loss of resources.

Pua said that this lopsided assignment of duties is wearisome, considering the seeming rise in frequency of violent crime in suburban Klang Valley, despite a drop in the index crime.

He pointed out that criminals have become more "audacious", to the extent that last weekend, 70 late-night diners at a steamboat restaurant were robbed at parang point in Cheras.

A similar robbery was also reported nearby, with some of the robbers believed to be of the same gang carrying out another heist after police nabbed their comrades.

Where's the war on crime?

He said that this runs contrary to Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak and police chief Khalid Abu Bakar's "war against crime" cry.

"But where is this 'war against crime'? It is as if these armed criminals were thumbing their noses at the prime minister and the Royal Malaysian Police (PDRM), pouring scorn on the ineffective threats issued by the latter," he added.

NONE "We hope that under the new Home Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi ( right ), the government will no longer deem the severity of the crime issue as a matter of 'public perception'.

"Rampant crime is real, Malaysians do not feel safe and the only perception of crime that needs to change is that belonging to the BN government."

The BN had, in its election manifesto, promised to put more police on the streets to combat crime.

As a result, the police are currently on a nationwide recruitment drive, hoping to hire 4,000 more personnel.

Police statistics show that Malaysia's overall crime index has dropped by about a quarter since the first phase of the government transformation programme (GTP) in 2009.