Hard to imagine that Rafizi is covered under our Whistleblower Protection Act

Much has been said about the arrest and the charging of PKR's Rafizi Ramli and a former bank Clerk Johari Mohamad under Section 97(1) of the Banking and Financial Institution Act (BAFIA). Read the story here. 

Extract from BAFIA Malaysia source here

The opposition as usual tried to spin the story and attempted to make Rafizi as some sort of a folks hero, a mythical whistleblower being charged because he is exposing wrongdoings they say. Hmm, while I am all for a citizen of this country exposing corruption and abuse of power, however one must do it through the proper channel, and yes the SPRM or the PDRM is a good and legitimate place to start as we have  the Whistleblower's Protection Act already in place read here.

Rafizi was charged under the BAFIA act for exposing confidential Bank Information to two journalists at the PKR HQ on 7 March 2012 and Johari was charged with abetting him. In all this whistleblowing bravado and what not, we should not lose sight of the fact that this blessed country has laws to protect its citizens and Rafizi as a citizen cannot take the law in his hands despite whatever "noble" intention that he may have. 

I do not know whether the duo, Rafizi and Johari realise is or not, but they may have done serious harm to our banking and financial institutions, they are in serious trouble for exposing confidential banking details and definitely not because they are exposing wrong doings at NFC or even the Ampang LRT Extensions. 

If they are allowed to be free, then can any Tom, Dick, Ali, Chan or Muthusamy  obtain secret banking information about an individual and expose it in public and ask to be legally protected because they are "exposing a wrong"? How does a layman not trained in law define a criminal act which could turn out to be just fitnah? That is why we have the Whistleblower Protection Act!

I hope when the case comes to trial and the duo if found guilty should be given exemplary sentences to deter others from doing what they have done thereby exposing our Banking and Financial system to harm which in turn will affect our Economy and even Investments from overseas. Money and jobs will be lost to other neighboring countries who protects their Banking and Financial  Security and confidentiality tightly. 

Please read also: Sifu Blogger Rocky Bru's Whistleblower Protection Act: Don't Let it be Misunderstood