IGNORING THE PAST IS easy in Malaysia. The only view allowed is the official. It emanates from the top. Look how the news is reported. A newspaper may have reporters at the scene, but its editors only believe the 'true' version by Bernama, the official news Agency. One newspaper stays out trouble by not bothering to report at all, with Bernama doing its reporting of local news. Television stations, other than the approved pro-Government, must rely on Bernama for their news content. A reporter may see but he did not see it if it is officially denied. Is it any wonder that rewriting and ignoring the past is a way of life. It does not matter what, look deep into it and you would find that what is, is not.

These are but statements of intent. Pak Lah has been in Tun Mahathir's cabinet for more than a decade. He is home minister for the last five years. Did he act against corruption in his ministry? He did not need Tun Mahathir's permission for that? Yet, the front-line departments he talks of are in his own home ministry. The word 'corruption' is so devalued in the civil service that no civil servant - at any level - is unafraid to demand and accept bribes. He knows that the higher up he is, the easier to find a needle in a haystack than for him to be caught for corruption. The Anti-Corruption Agency, which must investigate corruption, is so toothless that its investigation is seen as a badge of honour. It has no right to prosecute; on the Attorney-General's Chambers can. As a sop, every now and then a policeman, office boy or a middling civil servant would be charged, and that publicised as if to make an example.

THERE IS MORE TO DATO' SERI NAZRI Aziz's outburst two days than my commentary suggested yesterday [09 December 2003]. The Anti-Corruption Agency had interviewed him after a society of taxi drivers complained the Commercial Vehicle Licencing Board, under his enrepreneur development ministry's purview, had issued 6,000 taxi permits to one man. He does not deny it. It was assumed it happened when he was minister, and he had a hand in it. It now turns out it not in his time but under a predecessor. The ACA however investigated Dato' Seri Nazri, not the concerned former minister. It transpires the ACA director who met him did not want to hear his explanations and had threatened him when he explained the backbround. His outburst in the press now makes sense though not his rant about politicians being political masters and civil servants their servants. He spoilt his own case but that could be to divert attention to himself so as not to upset UMNO's political chances in the coming general election in Kelantan. It is all but certain the ACA behaved execrably, and not to investigate but to threaten the minister to shut up.

THE FRENCH STATESMAN, CARDINAL RICHELIEU, of the 17th century, said: "If you give me six lines written by the most honest man, I will find something in him to hang him." Tan Sri Abdullah Ahmad did not believe it and talked his way out as editor-in-chief of the New Straits Times. Now a cabinet minister talks intently for no purpose than to be sacked. In a remarkable tour de farce, the entrepreneur development minister, Dato' Seri Nazri Aziz, confronts a senior official of the Anti-Corruption Agency in a war of words. He is investigated by the ACA for allowing one individual 6,000 taxi permits. That he did that is clear: he says the ACA official, Dato' Nordin Ismail, did not understand why. Since these taxi permits can be farmed out at RM100 a month, this is a RM60,000 a month sinecure. It is not as profitable as the 150 AP permits a month the international trade and industry minister, Datin Rafidah Aziz, gave her son-in-law who then sold it to those who imported cars at RM10,000 a piece, or RM1.5 million a month. There are other cabinet ministers and politicians who offer similar sinecures for their loved ones.

The Anti-Corruption Agency once had teeth: its first director, Tan Sri Harun Hashim, in 1969, removed two UMNO mentris besar - of Perak and Trengganu - for corruption. They lived beyond their means. In those days, it was proof enough of corruption. It was in the immediate days of the 1969 racial riots, corruption was a political issue, and the government had to do something about it. But once the two mentris besar, and a few minor functionaries were removed, the government decided the ACA had too much power over politicians, and in the ensuring three decades deliberately and systematically defanged the ACA into the toothless body it is today with no power even to prosecute wrongdoers. The ACA now is in the direct purview of the Prime Minister, without whose consent it cannot investigate politicians and senior civil servants. The prosecutorial powers it once had is now vested in the Attorney-General's Chambers. And it would act only if the Prime Minister orders it to.

Dato' Pandithan showed he is much in control in this tit-for-tat. He has no quarrel with the MIC president, but he represents 66,000 Maika Holdings shareholders and wants to know how the MIC-run company is in such a bad state. Most of them are poor, and want to know about their investment. It is not a fight with MIC or Dato' Seri Samy. But the investment company is now controlled by the MIC president and run by his son. The IPF president touched a raw nerve. The Anti-Corruption Agency has raided Maika Holdings since, seized documents and interviewed its key officials. The two men can stop bickering, but there is now an issue and probable wrongdoing. That must now be addressed. Pak Lah had no option but to tell the two to shut up. Dato' Seri Samy started it to allege Dato' Pandithan recommended a newspaper editor for a dato'ship when the man was an MIC member, and had therefore lied to the King. The editor said he was not, and had not received the award. Dato' Pandithan then accused Dato' Seri Samy of revealing an official secret.

Dato' Hussein excluded Mr Ghafar, wanted Tengku Razaleigh, who would not accept since he was not in the cabinet at the time, and Dr Mahathir made a solemn promise that when he succeed Dato' Hussein he would have Tengku Razaleigh as his deputy. But when the time came, he did not, said he would accept whomsoever the UMNO general assembly selected. Dato' (now Tan Sri) Musa Hitam, with Dr Mahathir's blessings, challenged Tengku Razaleigh, defeated him and became deputy prime minister instead. Pak Lah has indicated his preference for Dato' Seri Najib but defers appointing him. Most expect an open fight between Dato' Seri Najib and another vice-president, Tan Sri Muhiyuddin Yassin for the UMNO deputy presidency in June. Then again, Pak Lah sends mixed signals. He has asked the Anti-Corruption Agency for the files of the three UMNO vice presidents.

He decided the only place for a Malay is in business, made it easy for civil servants to go into business, and the government's only role was to throw away good money after bad to rescue the tens of billion ringgit failures the cronies and business men of the Establishment showed. The Perwaja steel project is dead, and like a cancer, its debts grew from RM2 billion to RM18 billion, every attempt to rescue it one more rip-off. The only growth he could proudly claim is corruption. It eats into the soul. Nothing can be done without it, and it does not matter who you deal with. The higher up you go the larger the bribe. The BN government helped by making it impossible for the Anti-Corruption Agency from ever taking action if Dr Mahathir would not agree. The ACA in time became a weapon with which the BN government got its men in line. The high profile corruption cases of men in power came to court because they dared to challenge the Old Man.

Neither BN nor the Opposition believe the EC is impartial and fair, one protests because it is impartial and the other because it is not. It behaves as a BN Agency. Political parties, in its view, are either government or opposition. BN is in the goernment. PAS is in the Opposition. It runs into difficulties here but it does not bend. But PAS runs the state governments in Kelantan and Trengganu, but to the EC, in the two states, PAS is in the Opposition and the BN the government. It is caught in its own definition. And it cannot retract. The EC chairman is appointed for his reliability to BN, not if he would conduct elections fairly and impartially. This is only one example of its constitutional waywardness. Early this year, when Puteri UMNO called on Tan Sri Abdul Rashid Abdul Rahman, the EC appointed unemployed PU members as temporary staff for the coming general election. He accepted the offer with alacrity and appointed seven of the 45 names submitted. But word of this leaked out, and PAS raised it in Parliament. Tan Sri Abdul Rashid justified it, with guns blazing, in a remarkable interview last month with the Internet newspaper, malaysiakini (www.malaysiakini.com), could - or would - not see the unconstitutionally of it, and would appoint Opposition members but only if they applied. Malaysia has a problem with unemployed graduates, and and the EC has to help in the national interest.

THE NATIONAL FRONT (BN) GOVERNMENT RECENTLY denied the right of Parti Keadian Nasional (the National Justice Party), enlarged after its merger with Parti Rakyat Malaysia (PRM), to call itself KeADILan when it applied for registration under the law. A party which contested the 1999 General Election as KeADILan is now told it cannot. The Registrar of Societies is not bound to say why, and that is that. But a visit last night (10 October 2003) to Putrajaya showed it had to do with one man's megalomania and shared by UMNO and BN. The building which houses the appellate courts - the Court of Appeal and the Federal Court - is known incongruously as "The Palace of Justice" in English and not Istana Keadilan, as it should be. Official names of buildings must be vetted by the Dewan Bahasa dan Pustake (the Language and Literature Agency). An UMNO politician heads it. He approved it. So this stands out like a sore thumb. Every other ministry department along the Bouleward - with the Prime Minister's Office at one end and National Convention Centre at the other - and Putrajaya have Malay or Arabic names - the finance ministry, for instance, is Khazanah, from the Arabic, not Perbendaharan, the Malay word.

The people of the island, as poor as the proverbial church mice, cannot afford to travel by plane to the mainland, nor have relatives and friends who could afford to fly in to visit them. They need other more basic amenities than an airport that would not only destroy the ecology of the island but turn it into yet another confrontation between modernity and tradition, and between religion and irreligion. The political cost for Pahang is high: for the first time since 1955, when elections were first held, PAS could, if it plays its cards right, turn BN out of office. Two cabinet ministers - JJ and Tengku Adnan Mansor - are responsible for this, the latter and a Pahang government Agency having a sizeable chunk of shares in the Bukit Tinggi resort when it applied for the gambling licence. Tenku Adnan incidentally says he sold his shares "a long time ago" but the latest records kept by the KLSE, which must be told when substantial shares are sold or transferred, show he is economical with the truth. Unless he and the Pahang government Agency produces proof they have disposed off the shares, they must be assumed to hold them.

THE ELECTION COMMISSION CHAIRMAN, TAN Sri Abdul Rashid Abdul Rahman, is clear what his role is. He has proved beyond reasonable doubt, as a lawyer would put it, that he is at the beck and call of UMNO, that he will ensure the elections would be conducted unfairly, that he takes orders only from UMNO, that any nonsense of all parties given equal chances at the polls should be disabused without further ado. He is there so the Malays would not be alloted more seats, not for altruistic reasons of fair play and justice but so PAS would be stopped in its tracks and UMNO would continue to govern until Doomsday. You would note that in recent weeks, he has taken pains to reveal himself naked to all and sundry, that this belief in free and impartial elections is nonsense, that he is there so serve UMNO's interests. He now wants the EC to be an employment Agency for Puteri UMNO members.

The budget does not address the fundamental weaknesses of the country's fiscal and financial illnesses. Little or no mention is made of the off-budget agencies and their profligate budgets for which the government is ultimately responsible. Parliament has no oversight of it, but in Malaysia it provides the government with a parallel budget almost as large as the national budget but over which the elected representatives have no control of. The government makes use of their funds to hide its own profligacy before Parliament. Putra Jaya is built out of Parliamentary reach because its construction is funded by Petronas, an off-budget Agency. Plans are afoot to sell a large chunk of its petroleum exploration arm to a crony, and Parliament is not told about it. But the budget does not discuss its impact and reach and is presented to Parliament more to hide the cancer within than any attempt to cure it.

The two men are overconfident beyond belief. They belief that Sabah UMNO is so well entrenched in the state and that if it is controlled from Kuala Lumpur, it is so more development and perks can go their way. They believe it does not matter if it has not since they took office, but that will come in the future. The people of Sabah believe that which is why overconfidence reigns. Dato' Musa says Sabah BN works seamlessless. Tan Sri Khalil says the BN system, whatever it is, is well-entrenched in Sabah, and would face no hurdles for an opposition rout. In other words, Sabah BN would do the impossible and be returned in all 60 constituencies in the state election. Bernama, the news Agency, agrees: "Political observers said that if the Sabah election was held first, a Barisan (BN) clean sweep of all the 60 state seats, would be a morale booster for the national coalition in facing the general election."

IT TAKES LITTLE TO CHANGE matters around. What afflicts the Ampang Jaya municipal council is correction. As more details are revealed, it was more: the Selangor mentri besar, Dato' Seri Mohamed Khir Toyo, and a senior state executive councillor, are dragged in. And other municipal councils. The Anti-Corruption Agency raids the two men's homes and offices, and of their relatives. Then as quickly the focus changed. It is not corruption in Ampang Jaya, but that the enforcement officer, a retired army captain turned taxi driver, who did not reveal his bankruptcy, as required by civil service rules. A committee is set up and finds him guilty, and he is quickly dismissed. The corruption charges are referred to the Anti-Corruption Agency for no purpose than that no further action would be taken. Aadminitrative honour is satisfied. All is well. Corruption in Ampang Jaya? What corruption?

Capt. (rtd) Kudus is sacked not for corruption but for not revealing he is a bankrupt. Dr Khir now goes after the man's officers in the council. A police report is filed for why he is sacked, not for the corruption. He says he cannot on that since the Anti-Corruption Agency has taken charge of that. But the ACA cannot, going by past practice, investigate corrupt practice if a formal complaint is not lodged. So is this the first step to a cover-up to the endemic corruption in local councils?

A FOOL AND HIS MONEY, THE APHORISM goes, are soon parted. But not, it seems, if the Malaysian ratings Agency, RAM, and the Labuan financial offshore authority, LOFSA, has anything to do with it. A Malaysian business man in Melbourne, Dr Adrian Ong, set up a company called Commercial IBT Pty Ltd, operated it from a business service centre there, built up, RAM and LOFSA confirms, shareholders' funds of USD 6.9 billion, successfully kept hidden from Australian financial institutions, its regulatory authorities, its financial press of this financial giant in their midst. Not RAM and LOFSA. Both gave CiBT their seal of approval, and this non-existent Australian bank is now a deposit-taking financial institution in Labuan. Mark you, RAM and LOFSA investigate all applications as stringently and thoroughly as the best of its counterparts elsewhere in the world. So it claims. In Bolehland, that must be taken with a hefty pinch of salt. So it turns out.

This elaborate ploy was so MCA could unseat the Gerakan as the lead party in the Penang state government. The feelings were raised so high against the BN that one intelligence Agency in the government believes the Chinese parties would leave the BN if only to secure its limited Chinese base. Gerakan is with UMNO in seeing MCA squirm. But Gerakan's Chinese members are equally frustrated and angry with this needless power play. The Gerakan did not handle itself well, and stand to suffer in the next general elections. It may not even provide the chief minister in a BN government formed after it. UMNO would muscle in if, as now, it has more votes than either Gerakan or MCA. The BN calculated the DAP could not challenge either the MCA or Gerakan, but an opposition coalition with Keadilan Rakyat and DAP with PAS as the other party could well challenge the BN with some force. With UMNO, MCA and Gerakan self-destructing, the BN has a tough task ahead in the polls.

The policy is skewed. English is taught only in science and mathematics. How one could is doubtful. The government has lost control of it. It could not get UMNO, which leads the National Front government, to go one board. It was UMNO which insisted it be taught only in science and mathematics, thereby gutting the policy even before it is implement. Add to that the opposition from official sources. Dr Mahathir cannot afford the policy to be debated and discussed in detail, in the civil service and outside, for fear that the latent opposition to it is more serious than his worst fears. The Inland Revenue Board (IRB) thumb its noses at this policy. From next year, individual income tax payers would get forms only in Malay. It cut costs, it is time every resident in Malaysia is fluent in Malay, and those who cannot in Malay could employ tax consultants and agents to fill them. English, in other words, is not acceptable in what the government's most important revenue collecting Agency.

To be one of the Establishment is open sesame to untold wealth and debt. Many are chosen but few are called. Those who are not see themselves as failures, though they may be as wealthy as those who make it. They have a short shelf-life. It does not matter. A poor man dreaming of wealth only wants it, does not concern himself with losing it afterwards. The gold fish bowl is sufficient reward for him. How do you get in? One crony had an instant answer to any outlandish and outrageous demand of the Prime Minister: Can Do. He cannot do, but did that matter? He experience is limited to lorry driving, bankruptcies, and smooth talk. It did not prevent him from landing the largest public works project in South East Asia, and failing. Another forged business ties with the Prime Minister's brothers-in-law, and became the unrivalled self-proclaimed international business man of unquestioned repute. He did not complete what he was given, built up a huge portfolio of unrepayable debt, has his companies taken over by the government Agency to rescue cronies, Danaharta.

Pak Lah (1364)   United States (636)   Straits Times (412)   Samy Vellu (224)   Putra Jaya (200)   Chief Justice (200)   Saddam Hussein (188)   Vincent Tan (164)   Civil Service (154)   Parti KeADILan (148)   Islamic State (118)   Johore Bahru (100)   Sungei Buloh (94)   Bukit Tinggi (88)   Abdul Razak (80)   Pengkalen Pasir (68)   Ting Pek (64)   Armed Forces (59)   Soviet Union (58)

Malay Dominance (58)   Yong Teck (56)   Hong Kong (56)   Human Rights (56)   Syed Hamid (54)   Puteri UMNO (52)   Islam Hadhari (52)   Royal Commission (51)   Hussein Onn (51)   Rafidah Aziz (48)   Indian Congress (48)   Open House (44)   Vision Schools (44)   Shah Alam (44)   Malay Unity (42)   Chua Jui (42)   Abdul Taib (42)   Ampang Jaya (36)   Ras Adiba (36)

Osama Bin Laden (36)   Nik Aziz Nik (20)   Ling Liong Sik (18)   Lee Kuan Yew (18)

High Court Judge (14)   Wan Azizah Wan (9)   Lim Kit Siang (9)   Megat Junid Megat (8)

Mahathir (2960)

Anwar (2399)