Pua: Sketchy data, but crime rate up in S'gor

If incidents of violent crime are being "blown out of proportion", why hasn’t the Home Ministry been forthcoming about providing detailed statistics to dispel these claims?

Petaling Jaya Utara DAP parliamentarian Tony Pua said such data has not been readily available to MPs since 2009, making it hard for them to believe the crime index has improved.

"I’ve finally received (a written) reply from the (home) minister to my question posed (during the) March parliamentary sitting .... after more than three months of waiting,” he told reporters at the Parliament lobby today.

"And yet, the answers are intentionally incomplete so as to give the people an incomplete picture of the real crime situation.”

He said he had asked for  breakdown on crimes reported by district and type in Selangor since 2006.

Yet, he was only provided "the total number of violent crime and property theft for the two years without a breakdown by district".

Based on the "little information" provided, he said the number of violent crimes in Selangor had risen to 8,141 cases last year, compared to 7,853 cases in 2010.

Theft cases went up from 31,838 in 2010 to 36,161 in 2011, representing an 11.6 percent increase within a year.

And this is despite crime prevention being one of seven top national key result areas (NKRA) specified in the Government's Transformation Programme.

‘Obfuscation of data’

Pua noted that there is a higher incidence of crime in spite of steps taken by residential communities to set up barricades, security checkpoints and boom-gates at their own expense.

"Clearly the Najib administration is trying to provide only positive-looking summary data to improve the perception of his government.

“The Performance  Management Delivery Unit (Pemandu) does the exact same thing by obfuscating crime data which will give a positive perception of the government in the NKRA reports.

"There is absolutely no point in the home minister and Pemandu singing praises of the government with half-truths and blaming the people's real fear of crime on perception."

The data only indicates the government's weakness in fighting crime, he added, calling for transparency on data and for better efforts to tackle the “serious” issue.