Kit Siang urges minister not to renew IGP’s contract

PETALING JAYA, July 12 — The Inspector-General of Police (IGP)'s current contract ends in September and opposition strongman Lim Kit Siang is applying pressure on the government, specifically the home minister, not to renew it for allegedly failing to reduce crime rates.

According to statistics provided by the veteran parliamentarian, there were 150,000 cases of crime in 2004. This figure ballooned to over 200,000 in both 2007 and 2008 despite Parliament tripling funds allocated to the police under the Ninth Malaysia Plan to RM8 billion.

Lim said that this shows the failure of the IGP Tan Sri Musa Hassan to stem the tide of rising crime cases despite an increase in resources, and called on minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein not to renew Musa’s contract.

"The police are losing the war against crime but the home minister appears to support the renewal of the IGP's contract even though he has failed as IGP and failed to implement the recommendations of the Royal Police Commission report ," he said in a keynote address at a DAP workshop today.

"The report had stated that even 150,000 crime cases was too high and will frighten investors and make Malaysia an unsafe place for citizens and suggested that crime be reduced by 20 per cent in 12 months. Instead the crime rates have gone up!"

Musa retired in 2007, but his contract was extended for another two years after he was cleared of corruption charges.

Many Malaysians have complained about the high incidence of crime in the country. The prime minister yesterday announced that fighting crime would be one of the focus areas of his administration and that concrete plans on reducing the crime rate will be revealed by the end of the month.