Money has taken the place of service as governments routinely hand over what has been in its preserve to friendly business men so they could take money. It has become a cropper in every instance. Former government assets are traded on the market by these business men, and the service usually has dropped. This idea that government services must be privatised because the government should not be involved in money making exercises took root around the world in the '80s and '90s. Privatising government assets means Corruption. It is so in the United States. It is so in Singapore. It is so in Malaysia. Government assets are transferred in a hurry, often without enabling legislation. Today, news laws are planned so that the privatised entitly can make the people pay, as it was intended. There is nothing wrong with privatising government assets, but it must not be transferred. As it is in Malaysia, it is given often to a RM2 company of a billionaire tycoon, which makes money by transferring it to one of his companies or selling it to others interested, making his first killing. He makes his second, and often third, killing when it is listed on the stock market.

THE BUSINESS MEN HAVE taken over Deepavali and Hari Raya Puasa. Just as they did the Christmas in 1930 in the wake of the economic slump. Christmas is not the religious festival it once was, and the celebrations with an eye to business takes priority. Deepavali and Hari Raya Puasa is fast becoming a business venture. With a little help from authority. In Brickfields, were I live, the streets are lined with Indian traders, from Malaysia and India, disrupting business for the shops along Jalan Tun Sambanan and Jalan Travers, and annoying passers by or those like me who visit restaurants there. The licences have to be obtained through intermediaries to enable officers to get their Corruption. Direct application is not allowed. So a RM250 licence cost RM10,000 for a month of trading. The IGP's son is arrested for making more money than he is entitled to. The area in the open space behind KL Sentral that used to be a car park has become one large fair, with traders busy selling you Indian cakes in unhygenic conditions, often kept in the open so that flies will settle on it before you buy. The restaurant I patronise in Brickfields has managed to take the stall in front of it, but others are not so lucky. Meanwhile, we are told by the official and private radio and television that you are doing Deepavali and Hari Raya Puasa a favour by buying from these traders.

The IGP's son is arrested. He is released on bail. The IGP must resign. It does not matter if the son is eventually acquitted. The son is arrested for asking RM11,000 for a RM250 licence. The Malay Mail reports yesterday that RM39,000 has been demanded from one potential hawker. The system is rife with Corruption. The IGP's son is doing what everyone with authority does: being the middleman in the exchange of cash from those lower down with the peole that matter in City Hall (Dewan Bandaraya Kuala Lumpur). City Hall does not allow direct applications from hawkers for the sale, only through middle men. On is an electician who makes RM2.4 million and justifies it by saying that he has to give most of it to people in City Hall. This will inevitably continue when the aim is not the licence but the money behind it. The newspapers report the superficial news, and the arrest of the IGP's son is, and leave out the main issue of it. Why are we being asked to change the identity cards? Because there is money behind it. I am asked to change my identity card once again, and will be asked to change soon enough to another system. Besides the money that changes hands in the civil service, it costs one many several days daily wages to change the identity card. Why cannot police stations be the centre for changing identify cards?

We see this lack of moral scruples everywhere. Putra Jaya is built to ensure the vanity of one man, Tun Mahathir Mohamed, The major government departments are now situated in Putra Jaya, and to get there costs money which the people going there often do not have. The civil servants and politicians in UMNO have got used to Putra Jaya, but not the people in whose name they govern. People who used to go the government departments in Kuala Lumpur often now have to go to Putra Jaya, costing money just to get there. A taxi driver told me he charged RM30 for the trip to Putra Jaya. The government departments are far apart and it is almost impossible to walk. In the past, it would be a loss of a day's wages; today it is that plus about RM100 to deal with a government department. The emphasis on money, the Corruption in the civil service, police, almost every government servant is what has characterised it. Today laws are passed so that Corruption can flourish. The petrol price would be raised any day. Explanations are given how the government is losing revenue by raising prices. But the impact of it is the people will pay higher petrol prices. No one in government is serious about resolving the problem of the people, for that would cut into what they collect for themselves. It is puasa month now, and you saw the traffic police unusually active. You see them everywhere, and they collect from you where in the past they collected later. The official reason that would be given to this is that all this is not true. But the government is run for those in government, and they have to protect themselves, do they not?

Datin Seri Rafidah will not resign. Nor would Tan Sri Isa Samad. So, the public attention is on the Customs and Excise Director-General, Tan Sri Halil Mutalib. But he would not resign either. He would be allowed to go on retirement as scheduled, early next month. But Tan Sri Halil should never have been in the closed service, the customs and excise department. Not only was he bought into the service from outside, he was also given an extension by former Prime Minister, Tun Mahathir Mohamed. He looked the easiest to get rid of, but as the story unravelled, it became a fight between the present Prime Minister, Pak Lah, and the former Prime Minister. Pak Lah cannot force him to resign although he could spread the Corruption bit on Tan Sri Halil and damage Tun Mahathir. But it did not work as he planned. His 'boys' had accepted favours from Datin Seri Rafidah, Tan Sri Isa Samad, and Tan Sri Halil Mutalib, and if he did not close their cases quickly he would be hurt. The public perception that he is against Corruption is not true. For when he was faced with Corruption in his cabinet and his civil service, he could not act for that would have moved the UMNO warlords against him, those he would rather not, and so he took the easy way out, and went after Tun Mahathir. But that backfired. For it would have affected his 'boys', and he could not afford that. The mainstream newspapers, all owned by one or other Barisan Nasional newspapers, and all beholden to the Prime Minister, all today its readers that Datin Seri Rafidah should resign, that Tan Sri Isa Samad should resign, that Tan Sri Halil Mutalib should resign. But they are all in office, will not resign, and the newspapers find creative reasons why they should remain in the jobs.

The minister of international trade and industry and UMNO women's wing president, Datin Serii Rafidah Aziz is the next cabinet minister proven corrupt. The mainstream newspapers and mainstream TV media have confirmed it. Which means it is true. There are other stories of cabinet ministers and others corrupt, but if the alternate media write about it, then the laws of defamation apply, and they are stopped in their tracks. One UMNO leader has said he would have sued a mainstream journalist, but would not since that fellow does not have money. In other words, money is used to bankrupt the fellow. If one the other hand, an alterate journalist seems to be winning or gets a fairer corum of jiudges, on appeal, then the case is delayed as long as possible. The cynicism extends to UMNO members who are used to defame opposition figures. They are dropped and they are not supported in court or are not helped with the amount ordered by the courts to be paid to the opposition figure. So, Datin Seri Rafidah Aziz, like the warlord before here in the cabinet, Tan Seri Isa Samad, is banned from UMNO for Corruption but will not resign nor be sacked from the Pak Lah cabinet. The Prime Minister sacks from his cabinet only those who defy him personally: Tun Ghazali Shafie, Dato' Shahrir Samad and Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim, all by the then Prime Minister, Tun Mahathir Mohamed.

THE ROYAL COMMISSION ON THE POLICE issues a damning report. The police are corrupt, abusive, high-hand, obsolete, behind the times, stuck in a groove, take the law into their hands. So damning that it recommends 125 possible ways to revamp it to what it should be: as guardians of law and order. It reveals Corruption so bad that one police officer admits to assets of RM34 million. This is but a tip of the iceberg. It strains credulity that only one police officer is corrupt in a police force that is now shown in an official investigation to be gangsters in uniform. But how is this rectified? The cabinet will, of course, discuss each recommendation "in depth"; the Prime Minister is concerned at its contents – which suggests something more sinister, that as the political head of the police force he did not know, and was kept in the dark, what the report revealed; the deputy prime minister says the police, not the government, should look into it. In other words, the official reaction is a prelude to official inaction. Let a few months pass by, and it is back to business as usual in the police force.

Only a Royal Commission can correct this intelligence failure, with some sessions necessarily held in secret. Pak Lah and Dato' Seri Najib are at each other's political throats that the country runs on autopilot, with national secrets available to the highest bidder. The former deputy prime minister, Tun Ghafar Baba, did not mince his words in Kota Bharu over the weekend. He said since Corruption is deep-rooted and widespread in BN, with hundreds millions of ringgit changing hands before a party or general elections, he proposed that cabinet and party posts be tendered and given to the highest bidder, the money paid into the Treasury. Once in office, they should tell the Anti-Corruption Agency how they came to this undeclared wealth.

So, why did the government privatise TNB? The flawed thesis that money-making is best left to private enterprise, first articulated in US business schools, attracted governments all over the world, not that it is but that it provided a new form of Corruption. The harsh realities of this theory is now laid bare, not only in Malaysia but wherever privatisation has taken root in the past 25 years.

Musa's Corruption

The biggest casualty of Malaysia's democracy is democracy itself. Democracy is not what it is but a stick to beat people with, an ideology in which the opposition must be defeated at all cost. It is rare in a modern democracy for the government in power to lose. It is rare of a modern government not to put barriers, in the name of democracy, to put the opposition at a disadvantage. The United States goes on a crusade to impose democracy as proof it works, not that it does. There is not a democratic country in the world where Corruption does not underpin elections. It does not matter if the country is the United States or the Ukraine. The party that can amass the most wealth by dubious means wins, especially when the electoral system is suitably modified against the opposition.

NO Corruption IN UMNO, so the anti-Corruption agency (ACA) cannot step in, says the deputy prime minister, Dato' Seri Najib Tun Razak. Yes, it can, says the ACA director-general, Dato' Seri Zulkapli Mat Noor, and anyone can file a report. Of course, it can, says the Prime Minister, Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi. "If in money politics, there are things that violate the law," he said, the ACA could act on its own or on complaints lodged. But is there not a rule in UMNO that if a member files a police report, he is suspended or sacked? Times have changed.

Titles, federal and state, is buyable. It is difficult to imagine that money did not change hands, for whatever reason, before a title is awarded to a dodgy character. When few, other than civil servants, can obtain an award, however deserving, unless recommended by a BN political party, the scope for Corruption is unlimited. One deputy minister was accused by a party member of collecting money for lesser awards. It is has got so bad that some rulers have put a stop to political awards. In Johore, for instance, the sultan has brought the state dato'ships to the high respect it once had. The mentris besar sold them, there is no euphimism to describe it, and the sultan refused to award dato'ships and other awards if he thought money changed hands. The awarding of titles is now out of political hands, and he often decides none is worth it. In Selangor, it is limited to 40 a year, still too high. It is curious that it is the rulers who decide enough is enough, and reduce the dato'ships. A similar informal controls in oher sultanates. But it is still too lax.

UMNO IS CAUGHT IN its own trap. Since before, during and after at its party elections in September, it insisted bribery or, as genteel political circles would rather describe it, money politics, was an isolated aberration. But the evidence was all over the place, even if incontrovertible proof was not fortcoming. It would not call in the anti-Corruption agency or the police, it could handle this minor piffle itself. But try as it could, few accepted this in good faith. The elections saw more money changing hands than many listed companies in a year of busy sales. But unlike the companies, those who gave and accepted bribes did not bother about receipts and paper trails. And as any first year law student would tell you, without evidence there is no case. It was not law students though who repeated this elementary mantra of proof: it was those who administer the law, the highest authority in the land, the prime minister no less and his ministerial and political minions. In Malaysia Boleh, that is proof that no judge would dare ignore even in the face of evidence to the contrary. That being so, bribery does not exist. The Gods have spoken.

It goes without saying that Corruption is most prevalent in the works ministry because it doles out the lucrative contracts. The minister, Dato' Seri Samy Vellu's indefensible defence of projects that turn bad – the ring road scandal in Kepong, the slippages on the North-South highway after the usual year-end rains, as only two examples – and bending over backwards to protect the guilty points to incontestible evidence of wholesale bribery. The official response to this is to produce proof, as if those who indulge in illegal acts would make their wrongdoing available to all and sundry. The National Front (BN) government amends the law against Corruption so those in power and the powerful escape prosecution but not the small fish – hapless clerks, officeboys, the policeman – who are convicted and produced as proof the war against Corruption is nothing like President Bush's war on terror.

THE FORMER MALAYSIAN PRIME prime minister, Tun Mahathir Mohamed, was asked to partake in money politics in 1974, in his bid to be UMNO vice-president. He would have none of it, and came in third. He is not correct here in his recollections: He was on the then UMNO president, Tun Abdul Razak's preferred list of three vice-presidents, and his list was returned. Be that as it may, what he said about money politics and vote buying is true. It is equally true that UMNO leaders tolerated it. Within two years, Dr Mahathir was deputy minister, and prime minister in seven. But he did nothing to reduce its spread. He now has a spin to it now: "If you think that Corruption is very bad, your friend has to go. I had to decide against my friend once, you know." He admits, offhandedly, that the only Corruption he was prepared to make an issue of was the Corruption for which his "friend", Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim was unceremoniously sacked, detained under the Internal Security Act, beaten to a pulp by the Inspector-General of Police no less, convicted in a series of trials that continue to raise doubts about the equitability of Malaysian justice.

THE US IRAQ STUDY Group reported that the former Iraqi government, under President Saddam Hussein, alloted Malaysian prime minister, Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, through a Malaysian company called Tradeyear, oil vouchers worth 2m barrels under the UN Oil-for-Food programme. Other Malaysian beneficiaries are a company controlled by a Sabah business man, the Malaysian petroleum giant, Petronas, a retired Malaysian ambassador, an Iraqi resident amongst others. This announcement came at an inconvenient time. Pak Lah had just called on Malaysian business men to eschew Corruption as a way of life.

BE HONEST AND OPEN in business, the Malaysian prime minister, Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, tells Malaysian business men. The is all he could say at a fund-raising dinner (on 06 October 2004) for the Kuala Lumpur society for transparency and integrity (KLSTI). The world would shun Malaysia if business men bribed and corrupted their way for what they want. Otherwise, foreign investment would go elsewhere. Commitment, not Corruption, would show the world who we are; Malaysian businesses must remember it for a niche in global business. The government will help where it can, but business men to stay on the straight and narrow. The government helps by arming the anti-Corruption agency (ACA) with more powers, stiffer penalties for those found guilty, with a national integrity plan.

UMNO's 55th GENERAL ASSEMBLY last week told us what we at the time did not know: its leaders, from the President down, are innocent, honest, upright, men with a ingrained aversion to Corruption and other venalities of life that when talk is in the air of Corruption, bribery, vote-buying, money politics – call it what you will – they are shocked it happens in UMNO. It could happen elsewhere, but not here. They aver piously and without a hint of embarrassment they know nothing of it, that delegates voted them for their service to the party, race and nation. They know nothing of the accusations of money politics and Corruption for they do not, in truth, even know what it is. How could they when all they have in mind is the public good, and suffer, with insufficient recompense, in the service of UMNO, race and nation? If not their undiluted commitment to these altruistic belief, they would have been billionaires, not the multimillionaires they now are.

But since the government insists he should not have been acquitted, and it believes the judges' obiter is correct, would it not fail in its duties if it did not instruct the attorney-general's chambers to charge him afresh for the same offence? After all, it wants the man politically dead. This is its golden chance. And it has support from the usual quarters. The former prime minister, Tun Mahathir Mohamed, is convinced the federal court in wrong, and he is guilty as charged. (This despite his twaddly belief that his successor, Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, engineered the acquittal to make him irrelevent.) It was he who first accused him of Corruption and sodomy, sacked him from UMNO, where he was deputy president, and the government, where he was deputy prime minister, had him charged and convicted in a political conspiracy that now slowly reveals itself. The attorney-general and chief justice of the day did his bidding to convict him by playing fast and loose with the law and its procedure. But all underestimated him. If any other member of the cabinet had been damned, he would have stayed damned. Instead, as we know now, all they did was to disturb a wounded tiger.

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)