MGG Pillai Commentary View

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Corruption makes Malaysia go around

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?

The resignation of the IGP is necessary. He is a good man but he is part of the system. The arrest of the son is because of a glitch in the system that allows corruption to breed. It does not matter that his son had been 'fixed' by his enemies. The son is caught. The father, however good, must resign. Otherwise, his son's evental acquittal does not make sense. He is already past the age of retirement and is on extension and due to be extended next month. This will send a message to the civil servants and government servants that the downside of corruption is their resignation or dismissal. It will be a start to end what is an endemic problem. But corruption in government service or the private sector cannot be erased, only reduced. It is the duty of the government to reduce it, but the UMNO government, in the states and in centre, have not. They should. It can start with the IGP, and look at the laws which enrich those in authority. And cut down the corruption that enables the National Front to feed on the government.

Is the government prepared to overhaul the system so that the people are not inconvenenced and out of pocket? If it is, then we would not read of items like the IGP's son being arrested. Why can't City Hall be, to use the current world of ministers, transparent? Why should licencies for Ramadan trading be given to organisations with clout? Why cannot traders apply for licencies at City Hall? Why should it be given to organisations and individuals to be sold at a profit to people who would ultimately use them? What this means is that the civil and government servants are corrupt. Why are they corrupt? Because the politicians are. One feeds of the other, and if one is corrupt, the other invariably is. It starts from the lowliest civil servant. Unless you have clout, any one in authority rides rough shod over you. In the civil service and government service, this is definitely the case. So arrogant have they become, the head of a local government, a civil servant, ticks off an assistant minister. It does not matter what the issue is, but the civil servant has no right to do that in public. He has done that because it is the Malay that has the right to do so. It is not uncommon for a non-Malay minister waiting patiently in public for a civil servant to see him. Non-Malay ministers and politicians say they have to do it so that their communities get a little leeway.

But the issue is neutalised by the mainstream press. The AP scandal is one such. The Prime Minister, Dato' Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, should have sacked Datin Seri Rafidah Aziz, the minister of international trade and industry, from his cabinet the moment the AP scandal hit the street. He still has not, and the mainstream newspapers which once asked for her resignation is finding new reasons to praise her. The man-in-the-street is fed up and flexes his muscles. Whether he is Malay, Chinese or Indian does not matter. He seems the politician in power to be corrupt, the civil service to be corrupt, the government service to be corrupt. The laws are to shut him up. No wonder a columnist described this year's budget as benefitting the civil service. Most government rules in which the public approach it is so designed that the head of department is the ultimate authority, so you have to bribe the lower officials to push the file forward. A Malaysian doctor returned after he was offered citizenship after staying in Australia and given it by a junior official. He rejected it and returned to Malaysia. If citizenship could be given by a junior official, he decided, then the corruption is elsewhere, mostly which does not concern the people. In Malaysia, the minister decides it, and there is great opportunities for corruption.

To make matters worse, money is at the root of it. In the modern world, the currency is money. The cook begins a restaurant not because he cooks well but because he can make "a lot of money". A computer salesman has become a college principal to make money. But at least he has a degree. Others have opened colleges after having barely passed his school certificate. The professional man opens a business not to further his profession but to make money. And it shows. There is much emphasis in computerisation and the professional often leads it, but he does not use his knowledge to correct what is obviously wrong. The MRR2 in Kepong is faulty because of computerisation and corruption. It is easier to rebuild it than the repair it. The public works project collapsed shortly after it was opened. But the authorities do not want it rebuilt just yet, and the tender documents are not ready. Will it ever be rebuilt? It will. But after the elections. If before, it cannot be rebuilt quietly. And the government would prefer it quietly, not when it is caught in the issue of corruption.

It is the cabinet that orders what should be the preserve of a junior officer. But it is common in Malaysia to go the cabinet for a decision because the party involved can be UMNO or any party in the National Front. The civil servant may not want to take a decision on the company that would cause him endless difficulty later on, and so he passes it up the ladder until it lands on the cabinet. The Prime Minister is responsible for too many portfolios and UMNO, falls asleep at meetings, is late for meetings, does not keep up his paperwork, and cannot handle the matters referred to him. He also sleeps a lot if what happened to Tun Mahathir is typical. Tun Mahathir wanted to meet him and arrived half a hour before the appointment. Several hours passed. When he enquired, he was told, embarassedly, that that Pak Lah was still asleep at home! And the Prime Minister takes new responsibilities. Tun Mahathir works before and after work clearning up his paperwork. He does this after work because his day in office is spent mostly in meetings. He laft Pak Lah a clean slate, but would Pak Lah to his successor?

He is typified in the Malaysian press as the best in Malaysia since sliced bread. It used to say that of Tun Malaysia, Tun Hussein, Tun Razak and, to an extent, Tengku. His officers do not tell him the bad news. He is advised by thirty-year officers, on whom he trusts. But these officers do not know the ground, and operates without any thought of the ground. He is restrained by his wife's illness, but that does not cause him his ineptitude. He did not reshuffle his cabinet, either on taking office in November 2003 or after the general elections the following year, and newspaper reports talk of a cabinet reshuffle only now. But a cabinet reshuffle now with no thought of stopping corruption in his ranks, and in the civil service, is useless. One wonders if the corruption scandals now unearthed, mostly linked to Tun M and others opposed to him, are to save his skin and his coterie. With the governement offices in Putra Jaya, the ministers are also out of touch with the people who voted them in. Putra Jaya, as with most public work projects, was not built with the people in mind, but to assuage the vanity of one man. It cannot help the people.

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