According to the financial newswire, Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Paul Low also said the government wanted to tighten rules on such funding before the next general election.

The country must go to the polls by 2018.

Low, who is in charge of integrity and human rights, said the National Committee on Political Funding could also recommend that the ban extend to include private donations from abroad, even if they come from Malaysians living in foreign countries.

“The key criterion is to determine the extent of conflict of interest,” Bloomberg reported Low as saying.

In March, Low said that political donations from foreign interests and sources should be prohibited to “safeguard against foreign influences on local politics and the sovereignty of the nation.”

The issue of donations from foreign interests has been a much-discussed matter since revelations that Prime Minister Najib Razak had received RM2.6 billion in donations from the Saudi royal family.