Corruption And the Cabinet
When
the Prime Minister attacked corruption at the UMNO EGM last month, almost every one
yawned. When he attacks "money politics", he ignores its importance in
UMNO, in the National Front, in the government, in the cabinet. But it is the most
serious crisis all of them face. He does nothing about it. And expect every
one else to accept his strictures and not indulge in it. But how many of you can
get public documents out of government departments quickly without having to pay
unauthorised charges for it? People routinely tell you that without payment it is
a long wait. It is so blatant that hardly a day goes by when you would rather pay than
be harassed or waste time with the officer intent on making your life difficult.
Go further up, and the corruption becomes more seamless and more protected. The
minister for international trade and industry, Datin Rafidah Aziz, had to appear in
Lunas to deny she is not only not corrupt but is an incorruptible personal of
unquestioned probity. But she would not sue. She does not want to the give
the opposition a stick to beat her again. But if she values her reputation, she
should, and put this canard, if it is a canard, to rest once and for all. And
could she explain how her son-in-law receives from her ministry AP permits, without
which you cannot import a motor car, worth, in the market, RM1.5 million a month?
Could the works minister, Dato' Seri S. Samy Vellu, explain how one man got the bulk of
contracts he dished out during the Lunas byelection and which was in his gift to bestow?
But
to separate corruption from the cabinet is as arduous a surgical task as separating
Siamese twins. One feeds on the other. A political secretary of a cabinet
minister bought cars worth RM2 million, and this was a few years ago, or 2,000 times
more than his salary. This does not include his perks and the rest, in the same
way the Prime Minister says he is poorly paid at RM16,000, but conveniently ignores the
perks that come with the job, like a four-bedroom house with an attached 400-room
palace. Two cabinet ministers have bought RM1.7 million Porsches, and flaunts it
about without batting an eyelid. One cabinet minister has told he is worth at
least US$200 million, and this is only a partial list. Another enabled his son to
obtain RM1.2 billion in bank loans to build an empire which, like so many Malaysia Inc
business men, face bankruptcy and worse. One minister is so powerful that he controls,
by where his, the fate of about 70 per cent of all counters in the Kuala Lumpur stock
exchange.
The anti-corruption agency routinely investigates cabinet ministers --
not only they, but chief justices, judges, senior police officers, mentris besar -- and
the files are mysteriously shut. The Attorney General would not take action, nor
would the government. But the investigated minister then crows to the world that
he is cleared. The ousted and jailed deputy prime minister, Dato' Seri Anwar
Ibrahim, submitted a list of identifiable corruption, with evidence, but the
anti-corruption agency and the government which insists corruption must be rooted out
looks for creative ways to ensure he remains in prison all his life. I know of
many business men who gets favours by sending expensive gifts to spouses of ministers
they deal with. At least one prominent business man survives, even when bankruptcy
beckons, this way. The government's privatisation was not intended to make it more
efficient in private hands: every one went into the cronies, courtiers and
siblings of the politicians in government and cabinet. That they are given more
projects, without tender or proper documentation, after they have proven
themselves
inacapable, is corruption, whatever gloss you may put on it.
This is why few
cabinet ministers, mentris besar and other bigwigs of the administration can address the
crowds, especially in an election rally, to meet the opposition head on.
Corruption is so ingrained into the system that everything has a price. It is no
use asking critics to come up with proof. How are you going to get evidence when
the giving and taking of bribes is an offence; if the giver complains it is he,
not the taker, who ends up in jail. When you want something done, you are prepared
to pay for it not because it is required but that your time is unnecessarily wasted if
you do not. It is no use telling him that he should not, that he should report to
the police, that bribe takers must be exposed. I know of one minister, now dead,
who called a press conference to expose corruption moments after he accepted a bribe of
about RM500,000, then a high figure.
There is no enforcement. Laws are
usely if they are not enforced. The Transport minister wanted a crackdown on those who
ignored summonses, a few hundred thousand of them. What were the enforcers doing
when this piled up? Why do people not bother about parking fees? He knows
that he would be caught in one in thirty or fourty times he parks illegally. The
RM10 compound fine is cheaper than if he had lawfully paid his parking fees. The
odds are good, and worth a risk. This exists in every instance the public has to
deal with the government. Without exception. The government cannot act
because officers up and down the line, though not all of them, do not mind, if not
demand, bribes. When an affidavit alleges that the plaintiff's lawyer (both are
named: Tan Sri Vincent Tan, that eminent business man of unquestioned repute, and
Dato' V.K. Lingam, the holiday companion of the outgoing chief justice, Tun Eusoff Chin)
wrote the judgement awarding damages to his client, the anti-corruption agency did not
act, no investigations were carried out, nor any redress made. That is not
isolated.
The government wants to buy a submarine? One knows soon enough
the kickbacks offered and accepted. But, of course, the government runs a tight
ship, preaches against corruption. The Prime Minsiter is right about the
insidiousness corruption brings forth. His message would have been relevant if he
could explain how is it that his children and a minister's cronies have got the
privatisation of the general hospital in Kuala Lumpur, how the building of hospitals are
divided up between them, how a failed business man is allowed to build Malaysia's
submarine base in Sepanga Bay when he has proved his incapability in building the Bakun
Dam, and other projects. Why is a business man close to the Prime Minister and the
finance minister given even more lucrative contracts and projects after he proves his
incapability in what he got previously?
For the government, this corruption is
what it would destroy it. It now impinges upon national security. How many
immigrants have turned up in Malaysia without proper papers merely by bribing the right
person to be a security threat? Would the rash of armed robberies be as rampang if
corruption had been checked when it should have? You can bring in foreign workers
by going through the legal channels, but the process is so bureaucratic that the same
legal channel would offer them to you without hassle for a premium. Today, the
corruption is so engrained into the official mind, at all levels, that the government
has lost control. When the head rots, the rest will follow. If the
government does not look at it seriously, and act quickly, firmly, harshly to staunch
the trend, more than the Prime Minister's office is at stake. The people who vote
against it in elections are those who would not have; but the cost of being a
Malaysian is so heavy, with corruption and tolls and fees that rise by leaps and bounds,
that he is prepared to give some one else a chance to do better. So, please, Prime
Minister, do not tell us not to be corrupt. You have presided over a system which
insists upon it. For a change, why don't you show us that you mean what you say.
By making your cabinet ministers account for their ill-gotten gains.
M.G.G.
Pillai
pillai@mgg.pc.my
