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When is one not corrupt when one is?

WHEN I ASKED A PROMINENT POLITICIAN, holding no official post in politics but is in the periphery, why he is not more actively involved in the hurly burly of politics, he replied candidly he could not afford it. Since he is well off, with millions of ringgit to spare, how much more would he need for that? Without blinking an eyelid, he stared me in the face, and said: RM200 million. No one can afford to be in politics, in government or opposition, if he does not have more money than he can legally make. Since few have inherited wealth to allow them that luxury, they must resort to corruption in private while railing against it in public. To ensure it, the laws are modified to remove what little teeth the enforcers have that it is but impossible to convict a politician, especially if he is from the governing National Front (BN) coalition, or indeed anyone if the prime minister does not want him prosecuted.

So, the MCA president can help his then 27-year-old son arrange a RM1.2 billion loan, the MIC president can admit to anti-corruption officers of "more than US200 million" in assets, the UMNO women's leader could corruptly give her son-in-law the right to sell permits to import motor cars and allow him a sinecure of RM1.5 million a month. And none entered politics from wealth. Mentris besars and chief ministers become wealthy a short time after they take office. One is reputed to collect RM2 million a month. Several have acquired in this way assets of hundreds of millions of ringgit. With the BN in near rigor mortis, UMNO unsure of its place, many a cabinet minister and political leader unsure if he could be re-elected, there is little interest but to leave office wealthier than they are now.

All of this, as the deputy Prime Minister, Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, noted in his first major address as prime-minister-in-waiting, is anecdotal. But he gave enough clues in his speech that it is more. "If you operate a hotel in Malaysia, you need approximately 64 separate approvals every year from multiple agencies. Surely this can be streamlined. We are also aware of excruciating delays at the Land Office for a simple approval for the transfer of land. You can imagine what that does to liquidity of private assets." If you want to build a house, there are no less than 37 separate approvals from buying the land to building the house. There is corruption at every level. There is no ifs and buts to it.

In the last two decades, corruption fuelled the government more widespreadly than the two decades before that. With the anti-corruption agency defanged, those in government and the civil service believe corruption is a perk of office, how could it be otherwise? Dato' Seri Abdullah Badawi has not yet taken office, but there are commission agents and others out there making deals for projects in which a hefty percentage of the project's cost paid up front for "Pak Lah". Until now it was for "Doc", or "Dr Ling" or "Dato' Samy" or a named chief minister or mentri besar. Those in office do not want to leave office for two reasons: one, they are ignored the day after leaving office; two, the gravy train stops. The latter is more important, which is why the likes of Dato' Seri Ling Liong Sik or a Dato' Seri S. Samy Vellu, or a Datin Rafidah Aziz, or a BN cabinet minister or mentri besar or chief minister, cling to office at whatever cost to their personal integrity or future.

When there is no serious public debate on issues of the day, the government insist it knows best, especially, as now, when it does not, the police threaten organisers with detention under the Internal Security Act, it allows all and sundry in politics to commit crimes as corruption and worse with impunity. The law protects them. But woe betide a police man or a meter-reader who takes a RM10 bribe. That few politicians, in the ruling party or opposition, have been charged with corruption is, ipso facto, proof that they have immunity the ordinary folks do not. This is not to say corruption does not exist. It does. In all sizes and shapes. The most corrupt, in my view, are the politicians, especially those in the governing coalition. One man caught a few years ago with millions of ringgit on him in Australia, and could not explain how he came to it, is so awash with cash as he attempts to be a future prime minister of Malaysia. According to Pak Lah's anecdotal evidence of corruption, Tan Sri Mohamed Taib, the UMNO vice-president and a former mentri besar of Selangor, has about RM400 million in his political war chest. One senior UMNO personage is said to own a house worth RM36 million in London, his side-kick one worth RM6 million also in London, shortly after plans for a huge government purchase from foreign sources was signed. But these, you understand, are in Pak Lah's eyes, anecdotal, and therefore not worth bothering about.

Corruption, until the former deputy prime minister, Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim, was convicted, referred to money changing hands for favours done. Dato' Seri Anwar was convicted for making use of his office for a personal non-monetary gain. But the man who sacked him and tried to destroy him politically, the Prime Minister, Dato' Seri Mahathir Mohamed, is guilty of it every waking day of his life. He is en route to his hacienda in Argentina for a holiday of horse riding. Five senior horse-riding police officers are deputed to go along, at public expense, to accompany him, as heinous a corrupt practice as Dato' Seri Anwar's. His cabinet ministers flout the anti-corruption laws with immunity. They acquire wealth beyond greed in their years in office. Go to many a cabinet minister's, or chief minister's, house, and you would see enough personal cars, worth millions of ringgit, to stock a car showroom.

Politics is so expensive, in Malaysia and elsewhere, and so lucrative that newcomers face increasingly tough and financially strenuous hurdles to enter. It is only the well-heeled individual or political party that can. The entry level is raised every time. The government and politicians find the trade so lucrative that they do not want newcomers who are not prepared to work in the corrupt worldview they inhabit. The Prime Minister, Dato' Seri Mahathir Mohamed, destroyed the workable system in force when he took over when he make the making of money more important than the making of goods.

When money only matters, money is used to acquire more money. The cronies, siblings and courtiers of the Establishment are there because they are prepared to throw it in abandon to those who can give them what they want. There is an unhealthy symbioting relationship between those in power and the business man. Especially the business man who once sold second-hand cars or whose business careers are littered with bankruptcies. It is they who would bring forth funds beyond greed to get what they want. So, when is one not corrupt when one is? When one is in such august company in politics and business.

[This is my column in the latest issue of Harakah, 15-31 March 2003]

M.G.G. Pillai
pillai@mgg.pc.my