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Pak Lah's dilemma

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.

The government cannot fight corruption alone. All must join in, insist of ethical values and integrity. Or all will come to nought. Societies like the KLSTI works with the government to root out corruption. Pak Lah said what was expected of him. He went off to attend the ASEM meeting in Hanoi. It did not take long for his words to be challenged. The Iraq Survey Group, which for 18 months had investigated Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction, found instead weapons of mass corruption. There were no WMD, they found, embarrassing the two totem poles who insist Saddam must be destroyed at any cost because they had. This report is causing political waves in the US and Britain. So, the spin moved sharply to what Saddam did with the UN oil-for-food programme, which allowed Baghdad to sell its oil to buy food for its people. The sanctions continued in the meanwhile, and the ISG, in its trawling of official documents, found countries and inviduals all over the world who allegedly benefited, for personal gain, by partaking in it. It provided the much need diversion from the political flak in London and Washington.

The 1,800 page ISG report threw names about as confetti at a wedding. Half a dozen were Malaysia individuals and companies. This challenged the underlying theme of his speech last week. Almost everyone named kept a studied silence or denied it. Pak Lah, from Hanoi, denied it. But denial showed he does not practice what he said at the KLSTI dinner. "I have no deal or share in the matter," he said, "I don't know how my name was implicated." He is named as the beneficiary of special oil vouchers worth 1,949,000 barrels of oil, which could sold at a profit of US$1.3 million (about RM5.2 million), through a company called Tradeyear. He says it is bosh. Let us accept this for a moment. But he also said, according to Bernama from Hanoi, that "some Malaysian business men interested in the (oil-for-food) programme had asked me to write letters to the former Iraqi government supporting their bids for roles in the programme. I did not know what happened to their bids after that."

As it turns out, three Malaysian companies – Petronas, Jawala Corporation, Tradeyear – got oil-for-food vouchers. He must have sent out dozens of these recommendations. Why? Why should he be writing these letters of recommendations for these mostly fly-by-night companies which happened to be owned or controlled by UMNO leaders? If such recommendations had to be made, why did not the officials of the relevant ministries, or even the minister for international trade and industry, Datin Paduka Rafidah Aziz, give them? Why should it be the prime minister? In the way business is handled here, nothing is free. I know of many prominent business men of what it costs to shorten the odds in their work – let us face it, a prime ministerial recommendation is just that – and it does not come, even if the money does not reach the prime minister, without the suitable "greasing" of palms along the way. Pak Lah may be unaware of it, but that is how, as a rule, letters of recommendations are got.

In every third, and many a first and second and fourth, world country, this is how business is done. Halliburton is not a third world company. Only the form changes. Why do business men fly around with the prime minister on his trips overseas? Because they want to get close to him, for what they can get out of him, their aim not to establish links with the foreign business men they meet, but the prime minister he accompanies. The former prime minister, Tun Mahathir Mohamed, once led a large delegation of business men and officials to the United Kingdom for, amongst others, an investment conference. He delivered his speech, and returned to London. The business men, almost to a man, who passes off as corporate tycoons, showed their commitment to their businesses for a few more hours, and quietly left by train to London, where Dr Mahathir, and the action, was.

The underlying issue in Malaysia, in Pak Lah's words , is corruption. It was all about at the recent UMNO general assembly and its triennial elections. Nothing is done about that. It is all over the business world. Nothing is done about that. It is all over the civil service. Nothing is done about that. It is all over the judiciary. Nothing is done about that. It is all over the cabinet. Nothing is done about that. It is all over in the states. Nothing is done about that. When it turns into embarrassment, as now, every one involved, from the prime minister down, beat their breasts in horror. How could it happen in Malaysia? It could in Ougadougou, you understand, but never ever here. But it would when it is encouraged in practice if National Front (BN) politicians and prominent business men are the culprits. The anti-corruption agency cannot act without clearance from the prime minister's department. When some one high is caught, the resulting court trial turns into farce. A cabinet minister was arrested last year and charged for corruption but it does not send shivers down the spin of his colleagures. What he did and what Pak Lah is now accused of are similar. One is charged, the other's denial, proof of his innocence.

But this is not enough. His role in his son's involvement in the nucear arms scandal is not as innocent as he insists. How is it that his name is involved, in his present predicament, in one company but not the others. More important, he is alleged to have got the Iraq oil vouchers when he was deputy prime minister. His denial from Hanoi suggests that while he may be innocent, the others are not. Petronas, Javala Corporation and others mentioned have kept quiet, hoping silence is golden. It is not. Corruption, as the Anwar trials defined, is also misuse of power and authority. All this denial has shown is that in this Pak Lah is as guilty as Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim. Why has it come to that? Because those in charge use power to destroy those who threaten their powerbase, or favour their favourites. In other words, their actions, despite Pak Lah's call, are not an open book. When power is used this way, it could, and often does, turn against those who use it. As it has now. That is Pak Lah's dilemma

M.G.G. Pillai
pillai@streamyx.com