The functions of the five oversight committees would be in conflict with the role of the EAIC, said Walter Sandosam, a former member of the MACC consultation and corruption prevention panel.

The other oversight panels are the anti-corruption advisory board, the special committee on corruption, the complaints committee, and the operations review panel.

Sandosam said the committees would need to be disbanded as they would become superfluous under the EAIC.

The commission’s functions include monitoring the operations and procedures of an enforcement agency.

He suggested that the government strengthen MACC’s oversight panels instead, by appointing members who are “generally independent and able to think intelligently”.

They should come from diverse backgrounds and from professional bodies.

“If not, there is no point in appointing people who are just there to make up the numbers,” he said, adding that some panel members are former government officers who are “yes men”.

Another former oversight panel member, Edmund Terence Gomez, said MACC’s five oversight bodies must be free of political interference if they are to be fully independent.

“The prime minister has too much influence in appointing panel members and the MACC chief. Something is fundamentally wrong with the system,” the economist told FMT.

He said an independent advisory board panel must be empowered to choose the MACC chief.

Gomez resigned from the oversight panel In December 2021 after it failed to discuss allegations that MACC chief Azam Baki owned an extensive amount of corporate stock.

Last week, law and institutional reform minister Azalina Othman Said said a proposal to place MACC under the EAIC’s purview had been discussed by officials.

However, a coalition of civil society organisations said the move would be contradictory to the spirit of reform and transparency of Anwar Ibrahim’s government.