Lamenting that political parties are becoming increasingly corrupt, Dr Mahathir Mohamad said the main focus now is to make money.

According to the former premier, politics is no longer about championing causes but to secure contracts and so forth.

"Even during my time, there was corruption. We cannot deny that corruption exists everywhere, in the government and private sector.

"But lately, political parties have become more corrupt because of the belief that if you become a politician or become a leader in a political party, especially the party in power, there are opportunities to make money," he told Sinar Harian in an interview.

Mahathir was commenting on the Malaysian Corruption Barometer 2014 survey, which found that political parties were perceived to be the most corrupt, followed by the police and civil servants.

Responding to a question, the former premier conceded that it was difficult for the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) to garner concrete evidence on the wrongdoings of politicians.

"It is difficult (for MACC to prosecute) especially if it is the party in power. To obtain evidence to be tendered in court is difficult.

"The corrupt will not speak. The one (who offers the bribe) will also not speak, he doesn’t want to go to court. So it is difficult to get the sufficient information," he said.

However, Mahathir, who was prime minister for more than two decades, said there were other measures to combat corruption.

One of them, he said, was to shorten the approval period for a particular project apart from ensuring that the process is clear.

"If the process expedites service to the people, it will reduce corruption.

"When I took over as prime minister, you cannot build buildings in Kuala Lumpur because the requests were not entertained and the process sometimes took two or three years.

"So to expedite the process, bribes are offered. That is the problem. So if we shorten the period and make it (the process) open, I feel it will reduce corruption," he added.

Mahathir also said the current focus is on taking action against those who are involved in corruption but not prevention, which is more important.

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