LETTER | Did you know that political parties in Malaysia need not disclose who their donors are? This was why Najib Abdul Razak not-so-brilliantly came up with the "anonymous Arab donor" narrative to claim that the money in his account was a political donation by someone.

Today, under the Pakatan Harapan rule, we similarly still have this "Arab donor" problem where voters are unable to scrutinise the donors of political parties.

Political financing is the most important issue linked to corruption after procurement. Many of the issues affecting Malaysia today, for example developmental and environmental issues, are linked to political financing.

Developers donate millions to political parties without any transparency in the process. Who are these developers that donate to particular parties and what is the amount being donated? What projects do these developers have with the government? These interests need to be declared so that the public would be able to scrutinise if there is any vested interest or whether these donations to political parties is a form of bribery to win over unnecessary development projects that will only benefit the contractors and developers.

I have heard of how developers and big-time business operators bring in cash donations in thousands of ringgit to the offices of various political parties. I have also heard of how developers and business operators would cash-in donations to a political party's bank account in small amounts through multiple cash deposit machines in different locations to make it look as if these were donations from different people from different places. 

All this is done to avoid disclosing the identity of the donor and to prevent the public from seeing the connection between these donations and the business interest of the donors with the government or any other political party.

What is sad is that the Harapan government has not been showing real interest and has been somewhat slow in regulating political financing. It is not sure that we will see real political financing laws enacted in this country. Many political parties are opposing the idea silently.

Political financing laws if enacted will make it compulsory for the identity of the donors to be made public, something that is possible in today's situation. Previously, Harapan used to claim that if the identity of the donors were to be made public, their donors would be victimised by the then BN government in power. This is not the situation today.

Political financing laws will also regulate how much an individual, organisation or company can donate towards a political party. This is important so that no one has influence over the decisions made by the ruling government and opposition parties. When powerful and rich companies throw their money into political parties, they are allowed to set the direction of the party and the country and this affects everything including what we see, where we live, what we eat, what clothing we wear and more. We should not allow these powerful companies to dictate how we live our lives.

It is time Malaysians realise these serious problems in political financing and call upon their MPs to support their cause. Our ignorance and silence will only help these powerfull business operators to rip apart our lives.

As a suggestion, I call upon the DAP  to lead the call for political financing laws to be enacted. DAP, which has always preached its CAT principle, should for a start lead the way and start to disclose its donors information. This is based on the principle of accountability and transparency.

I make this call because Penang is currently going through massive development projects and most of us think that these projects in the pipeline are unnecessary and only benefit the rich and powerful. I also make this call because DAP is often accused of being a "developer party". 

Hence, DAP, on the principle of transparency, should disclose who their donors are and whether the contractors, sub-contractors and individuals linked to these companies and who are involved in the various development projects on the island and in the mainland have made a donation to the party. 

Allow the public to scrutinise this information. DAP should willingly give us this information without waiting for laws to be enacted.

Would DAP take up this call and live up to its principles? Can they lead the way? This will answer the question as to whether Harapan is committed to addressing the "Arab donor" problem within its parties.

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.