Month: March 2007

Stop glorifying Mat Rempits!
ILLUMINATIONS
Azly Rahman

The (North Pole Free Fall) expedition is among the latest controversial moves by Umno to engage youths, especially mat rempit, in a series of baffling activities… . This includes a 50,000-strong carnival gathering which never took off, a road trip tainted by sex and booze allegations and a proposed programme to reward mat rempit for nabbing snatch thieves

— Malaysiakini newsreport March 10, 2007

Again and again we are sending a wrong message to the children of tomorrow concerning what good behavior for our youth should be. Wrong model.

Why are we allowing UMNO Putera to glorify Mat Rempits and reward them with something they do not deserve? Don’t these youth leaders know what education means and how to educate these ‘damaged’ youth? We do not understand what being “fair but firm” means in educating troubled youth. Worse, we do not understand the root cause of why children fail in school but graduate to become Mat and Minah Rempits or “Alongs” and all kinds of human beings alienated by the system we built together.

The 50,000 strong gathering, the name-change to Mat Cemerlang, the proposed drag race circuit, and now the North Pole jump — what are these for in the name of ‘education for good citizenship’? How many will 50,000 mat rempits multiply into in a decade? What will be the consequence for our nation already falling apart from corruption and mismanagement?

We need more than just quick fix solution to the issue of ‘juvenile delinquency’ that is getting out of control. We need a “zero-tolerance policy” on “rempitizing behaviors”.

Don’t the ministry of education know what the taxpayers want for the education system? Why not spend money preparing good teachers to prepare good curriculum and teaching strategies to deal with the children of the Millennium generation? Why not spend money making sure that all schools meet the minimum standards of technology, resources, safety, and teacher competency? Why not beef up the “rempit division” of the police force?

Why continue to arrogantly trumpet pseudo-humanistic approach to curing the disease of rempitism when there are better long-lasting ways we can employ to make sure students do not become what they shouldn’t be becoming? Continue reading “Stop glorifying Mat Rempits!”

Po Kuan blogs a heart-rending story in the continuing creation of a Malaysian diaspora which has happened to more than a million Malaysians in the past four decades — whether to uproot and migrate overseas and later to take up foreign citizenship.

Although human migration is a common phenomenon in human history and prehistory, the migration of over a million Malaysians in the past four decades was more because of push rather than pull-factors, with the country losing many of her best talents and human resources stunting and undermining Malaysia’s achievement of her full potential in national development and international competitiveness.

Malaysia on her 50th anniversary would have been a more developed, equitable and more competitive nation if more than a million of the most talented , enterprising and resourceful Malaysians had not been driven away from our shores in the past four decades because of unfair discriminatory nation-building policies and measures by myopic politicians.

After nearly four decades of such self-inflicted injuries, the heart-rending story which Po Kuan blogs should have come to an end with the abandonment of unfair discriminatory policies among Malaysians.

But this is not the case. It would appear that the “Good Riddance to Bad Rubbish” reflex and mentality to the problem of emigration of Malaysians, though not publicly stated as in the seventies and eighties, is still quite prevalent today.

There is not much that can be done about the pull-factors of human migration but a government which refuses to address the problem of the push-factors, which are the result of the failures of just and good governance, cannot claim to be a good government. Continue reading “Malaysian diaspora contd – Po Kuan’s blog”

A final-year student from the Faculty of Arts and Social Science, University of Malaya complained that a workshop purportedly to impart soft skills was actually a direct-sales commercial programme.

This is the email:

I’m a final year student from Faculty of Arts and Social Science, Unversity of Malaya. I had a disappointment and felt been cheated with what had happened yesterday (17th March 2007) and I would like to tell you here.

Yesterday, all the final year students from the Faculty of Arts and Social Science were told to attend a workshop called ‘Bengkel Pendedahan dan Penilaian Kemahiran Keusahawan’. It is a soft skill program which is set by the government to improve our presentation skill in the future.

At first, from the workshop title, I thought it was an entrepreneur course that gives us some guide line on what entreprise is all about. There were 2 talks in the morning session, and some programmes and activities in the evening. Pertaining to the talk, they invited a company called ‘Aznita Mgt (M) Sdn. Bhd. to talk about financial industry perspective. To me, it was only a DIRECT SALES program. During their talks, they had told us it is pointless and useless to study so hard, no use to be a teacher, doctor or lawyer, as the money earn is much lesser if compare to them. They can live in a big house and drive luxury cars.

In the second part of the speech, actually the person who gave the talk is the husband to the first person who gave speech. They are from the same company. In this session, he told us about his product, Amcash. It is related with the insurance product. He talked about how good the product is. For instant, if we invest in Amcash, we can obtain scholarship every 3 years, the payer will get insurance benefit and so on. We had a very bad impression about those speech. Continue reading “Imparting soft skills or promoting direct sales?”

Every March, the Yang di Pertuan Agong will officially launch Parliament with a Royal Address which spells out the government’s programme for the new year.

The Royal Address is not the personal speech of the Yang di Pertuan Agong but the policy presentation of the government-of-the-day for the next 12 months.

The official opening of the third session of the current 11th Parliament will be on Monday (19th March) by the new Yang di Pertuan Agong for the first time, and Malaysians are entitled to know whether the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi will redeem his failures in the past 40 months to “walk the talk” of reform agenda to spell out the government’s policy initiatives and legislation programme for the coming year to finally deliver his reform pledge.

Let me touch on three areas which should be top priority in the Abdullah government’s policy initiatives and legislation programme for the coming year, if Abdullah is to retain credibility and even legitimacy for his unprecedented 91% parliamentary majority in the March 2004 general election.

Firstly, announce a Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Anti-Corruption Agency (ACA) and why corruption had worsened in the past three years instead of improving — as reflected not only by the seven-placing drop from No. 37 to 44 in the Transparency International (TI) Corruption Perception Index (CPI) from 2003 to 2006 but also the latest corruption survey last week of Hong Kong-based Political and Economic Risk Consultancy (PERC) that Malaysia is perceived to be more corrupt than the previous year and that Malaysia would soon lose out and be overtaken by China and India in anti-corruption rankings.

The Royal Address on Monday should also incorporate the Abdullah premiership’s commitment to introduce legislation to confer full autonomy to the ACA, removing it from the jurisdiction of the Prime Minister’s Office and making it fully independent and answerable only to Parliament. Continue reading “Royal Address Monday – will PM redeem failures of past 40 months to “walk the talk” of reform?”

Living in Kasar Times
by Farish A. Noor

Its quite rare for a talcum-powdered, linen-clad bloke like me to get angry in public, and so I write this piece with a hint of embarrassment to begin with. During one of my antique hunts around Central Market recently, I experienced something that raised my blood pressure high enough to warrant an article being written about it.

While trawling through the mountains of made-for-tourists kitsch that passes as contemporary Southeast Asian folk art and handicrafts (nursing the futile hope of actually chancing upon something worth buying, in vain), I overheard a conversation among some young kutu types.

They were looking at some wayang kulit puppets hanging by the door of one of the shops in the market, and pointing to the figures of the Mahabharata heroes Yudistira and Arjuna, two of the five Pandawa brothers of lore.

The punk-headed kutu said to his skin-headed friend with a ring in his nose: “Apalah hero wayang ni. Kurus, ramping macam mak nyah lah. Tangan tak de muscle pun, macam mana nak jadi hero? Nampak macam bapok saja!”

Under normal circumstances I would have let such an untutored remark pass. If Malaysians can’t be bothered to read a little bit more about their own culture and history, then why should we feel offended when tourists say similar things and think similar thoughts?

Who would care to explain to the kutu braders why the heroic figures in the Nusantara rendition of the Mahabharata were and remain so slender, so fine, almost feminine? And even if I had set up my soapbox to deliver an impromptu lecture of Southeast Asian masculine aesthetics, who would have listened?

I cursed my luck for not being able to find a single decent piece of nyonya jewellery instead…

But one month on, events have prompted me to go back to that episode. Like some pathetic gesture of trying to regain lost time, I regret that I had not stood my ground and defended the slender arms of dear ol’ Arjuna, he of the long eyelashes and warm pouting lips.

I regret the fact that I had not defended the value of halus against the unwavering, relentless, smelly tide of kasar and kasarism instead. For indeed, we live in kasar times.

Signs of kasar-ness are all around us today: Politicians lose their cool and reach for their daggers, shouting slogans of blood and triumphalism as soon as they see a microphone.

Powerful men on the make assume that their powers are so limitless that the mansions they build have to reflect their largess as well, to the point where their homes rival the palaces of kings both in size and vulgarity.

Arguments are no longer met with counter-arguments, but with lawsuits or death threats instead. So much for our beloved ‘Asian values’ that are supposed to be ever so halus, refined and sophisticated. Continue reading “Living in Kasar Times”

Nanyang Siang Pau has reported that the National Service Training Council at its meeting yesterday had recommended that the national service training programme should not be made compulsory for girls.

It has taken three long years for the National Service Training Council to take up my public call to the Cabinet in April 2004 that if the Cabinet was not prepared to suspend the national service training programme, although it was “half-baked, ill-conceived and premature” from poor conception, formulation and execution right from the beginning, the least the Cabinet should do was to make the national service training programme voluntary for girls, allowing parents who wish to do so to immediately withdraw their daughters from the programme and bring them home.

The call followed the spate of fights, sexual harassment (including rape) and breakdown of discipline in the national service programme. I had also pointed out at the time that out of 1,000 national service trainers, only 15 per cent were women when the ratio of male and female trainees were almost equal.

But this call three years ago fell on deaf ears, including women Cabinet Ministers and the National Service Training Council.

Public confidence in the national service training programme has continued to plummet in the past three years because of the unending incidents, mishaps and disasters including avoidable deaths of trainees, to the extent that quite a substantial number of parents would agree with the sentiments of the letter-to-the editor in the Malay Mail yesterday:

“I would gladly be slapped with the RM3,000 fine rather than be compensated the same amount for the untimely death of my son or daughter.”

Some 365,000 18-year-olds would have undergone the three-month national service training programme by September this year since it was launched in 2004, and over RM2 billion of taxpayers’ money spent.

The National Service Training programme should be a model of transparency and integrity with a full public accounting of the more than RM2 billion spent in the past four years to prove that every sen had been honestly used for the welfare of the trainees. Continue reading “RM2 billion spent on National Service – be a model of integrity”

Former Prime Minister, Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad yesterday denied allegations that he was behind the move to “cold storage” former Sabah Anti-Corruption Agency (ACA) director Mohd Ramli Abdul Manan for investigating a minister, Tan Sri Kasitah Gaddam.

In an earlier interview with Malaysiakini, Ramli said he believed that it was the former premier who ordered him to be transferred out of Sabah and was put in “cold storage” at the ACA headquarters in Kuala Lumpur for investigating allegations of corruption involving former land and co-operative development minister Kasitah Gaddam.

He said he moved out of his post as Sabah ACA chief soon after he and his team of 15 officers had completed the probe on Kasitah Gaddam.

This is from Ramli’s interview with Malaysiakini:

Q. Was the ACA happy with the investigation?

They were not happy because a lot of political figures and a government company were involved.

Q. What happened after you finished your investigation?

We file it to the ACA headquarters.

Q. Who gave the orders to move you out of Sabah?

I think (it was ex-Prime Minister Dr) Mahathir (Mohamad) because when I ask them (ACA officers), they said it was orders from high up. That was in 2000.

A few Sabah ministers went to see Mahathir but I have no proof (of that). I asked ‘why are you all treating me like this’, and they said orders from the top. Who else? And they were afraid to put me in an important position (after that). Why were they afraid?

Q. Like (ACA chief) Zulkipli (Mat Noor), attorney-general Abdul Gani Patail is also from Sabah.

That was what I told the police officer (who was investigating the Zulkipli case). Gani Patail should not be involved in the (Zulkipli) case because they (Abdul Gani and Zulkipli) are quite close.

Both were recruited by Mahathir. At that time, Gani Patail was the deputy public prosecutor (DPP) and Zul was the Special Branch chief in Sabah. Continue reading “Ramli’s “cold-storage” for investigating Kasitah – Mahathir should agree to appear before PSCI to promote culture of integrity”

OF LITTLE NAPOLEONS… ..THE HEALTH MINISTRY AND… ..THE SULTANAH BAHIYAH HOSPITAL IN ALOR STAR

AHMAD SOBRI

It is appalling that the Malaysian public had to witness yet again another squabble between the Works Minister and Health Minister about the unending controversy of the still uncompleted new Alor Star General Hospital.

Earlier, the Deputy Minister of Health Datuk Dr Abdul Latiff Ahmad apparently accepted blame on behalf of the Health Ministry saying delays were necessary so infrastructural changes could be made to accommodate the latest technological changes in medicine.

Not so, said the Health Minister Chua Soi Lek still insistent that the Works Ministry with its changing contractors were to blame for the mess. Samy Velu, obviously peeved with the finger-pointing, sarcastically accepted blame for the delays,

In Operation Desert Storm, shortly after Iraqi troops rolled into Kuwait in 1990, the United States deployed to Saudi Arabia more than 20,000 medical personnel to provide medical care to coalition forces.

The medical infrastructure for the war included 50 to 500-bedded combat zone fleet hospitals deployed in various parts of the war zone. The scope of treatment available at these facilities mirrored fully-staffed hospitals in the United States. The first 500-bedded Fleet Hospital was built in just 16 days, with the help of Navy Construction Battalion Units complete with operating rooms that can handle general surgical cases, neurosurgery, thoracic surgery, orthopaedic surgery, intensive care units and radiological facilities.

These facilities were further supported by 1000-bedded hospital ships, each of which were equipped with 50 trauma stations that form the casualty receiving area, 12 operating rooms, a 20-bedded recovery room and 80 intensive care beds. The entire medical network comprising 60 hospitals and infrastructure to take in both military and civilian casualties was ready in three months so war against Saddam Hussein could commence.

This level of efficiency appears to elude our health planners and hospital builders in Malaysia. Granted we are in peace time and all these hospitals are Malaysia’s version of “super-hospitals” designed to last us generations, it still doesn’t absolve the persons involved in this muddle for wasting hard-earned tax payer’s money. Continue reading “Of Little Napoleons…the Health Ministry and… the Sultanah Bahiyah Hospital in Alor Star”

More bad news for the country and the 40-month Abdullah premiership on the anti-corruption front, although some media, whether intentionally or otherwise, seems to be presenting it as a plus and positive for Malaysia.

The Hong Kong-based Political and Economic Risk Consultancy (PERC) 2007 corruption table in Asia, which is released every year based on a poll of expatriates working in Asia on their perceptions on corruption, is bad and grim news for all Malaysians concerned about national integrity, good governance and international competitiveness.

In a grading system with zero as the best possible score and 10 as the worst, Malaysia was ranked sixth in Asia with a score of 6.25 by PERC Corruption Asia 2007.

In 1996, Malaysia was ranked No. 4 with a score of 5, a reflection of the relentless deterioration of the corruption problem in the country over the years.

As the PERC annual corruption ranking is one of the polls used by Transparency International (TI) for its annual Corruption Perception Index (CPI), this is very bad news as the PERC 2007 Corruption Table is a forewarning that Malaysia is heading south towards No. 50 placing in TI CPI 2007 on the occasion of Malaysia’s 50th Merdeka anniversary this year.

There are many grim warnings from the 2007 PERC Corruption Table (Asia) that Malaysia is losing out in our international competitiveness because of our failure to enhance our good governance indicators, particularly in the war against corruption.

It will not be long before Malaysia slips further in the Asian and international corruption rankings, as we are also losing out to China and India. Continue reading “Corruption ranking – Malaysia heading south: No 50 in TI CPI 2007 on Malaysia’s 50th national anniversary?”

The Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi announced yesterday that the Barisan Nasional (BN) Supreme Council has decided on “Mission 2057” to ensure continued development in all aspects since independence and after Vision 2020 had been achieved. “Mission 2057” would become the development guideline for another 50 years.

It sounded a rather tall tale that the BN Supreme Council met yesterday to take the policy decision to formulate Mission 2057, when it is not only dubious that Vision 2020 could be achieved but very clear that Abdullah’s Mission 2004 is heading towards a big flop.

Before Abdullah trots out Mission 2057 about Malaysia in another half-a-century, he should deliver Mission 2004 which he had promised in the 2004 general election to lead an efficient, clean, incorruptible, accountable, transparent, just, democratic and progressive administration which is prepared to hear the truth from the people — and for which he had won the unprecedented victory of 91 per cent of parliamentary seats which had never been achieved by the previous four Prime Ministers.

When he became the fifth Prime Minister in November 2003, Abdullah pledged to make anti-corruption the top agenda and proclaimed “zero tolerance for corruption”.

To mark the first three months of his premiership, Abdullah reiterated in an interview with senior editors of major newspapers his priority commitment to change the mindset of Malaysians to match the country’s first-class infrastructure with a first-class mentality, including the eradication of public and private sector corruption.

On his first 100 days as Prime Minister, Abdullah declared in his address to the Cambridge Foundation on 10th February 2004: “My first 100 days was my statement of intent. Now we get to work and walk the talk.”

However, after the unprecedented 91% parliamentary majority victory in the March 2004 general election, Abdullah had forgotten his declaration of “zero tolerance for corruption” or his pledge to make the fight against corruption as the top priority of his administration, as his “statement of intent” of his first 100 days remained mere “statement of intent” for the next 1,115 days till today without any “walk the talk” whatsoever. Continue reading “PM – deliver Mission 2004 before trotting out Mission 2057!”

Corrupt to the core!
Azly Rahman
[email protected]

Hai orang-orang yang beriman, makanlah di antara rezeki yang baik yang Kami berikan kepadamu dan bersyukurlah kepada Allah, jika benar hanya kepada-Nya kamu berserah (Al-Baqarah:172).

This comes from the website of the Anti-Corruption Agency (ACA), whose slogan is Tingkatkan integriti, Hapuskan rasuah.

I am tired of contradictions. And of slogans. The nation is tired of them too.

Who but the ACA can we turn to report corrupt people, corrupt practices? We have become a pathetic nation made helpless by the revelations we are reading daily. Things are falling apart.

Yet we have a general election coming – one in which even the Election Commissions itself cannot claim to be independent. How many dozen ‘Royal Commissions’ of Inquiry have we asked to be set up since Independence to help us uncover truths – how many have materialised?

We no longer have any shame as a nation. Even worse, we still vote for vultures.

Corruption runs in the veins of the body politic – in business, politics, religion, education, culture, etc. Even in our mind. Even in our language.

Consider the Approved Permit issue, the half-bridge to Sinagpore, the ECM Libra-Avenue Capital merger, you name it…we do not know where these cases are going. History tells us that we will not see consequences, nor see anyone resigning voluntarily. We do not have any shame. Unlike the Japanese.

Even our universities are seeing corrupt practices. We see students thrown out for speaking up, academicians axed for taking a stand, lecturers made to feel good about how moral and benevolent the government is, and how academic-cronyism is taking shape.

Conferences in public universities are about discussing feel-good themes, presenting papers to make feel-good communalistic ideologies feel elevated, and going into academic detail of how to parrot government propaganda better. How do we expect to produce critical thinkers among graduates when critical analyses about our society are seldom produced and presented. From our public universities to our think tanks, we see lethargy in the way we view society and politics.

Our consciousness has been corrupted by the fear, fantasy and fetish we have structured into our mind though a funneling process of depthlessness of thought. Only if we had the Malaysian version of the great Argentine medical-doctor turned social messiah, Che Guevara, as education minister, We would see true transformation of the education to fight corruption of the soul, mind, and flesh. Continue reading “Corrupt to the core!”

The longest-serving former Inspector-General of Police, Tun Hanif Omar, in his Sunday Star column “Point of View” today dealt the serious corruption allegations which had been made against the Anti-Corruption Agency (ACA) director-general Datuk Zulkipli Mat Noor by former top ACA officer and “whistleblower” Mohamad Ramli Manan in July last year.

Entitled “Panta Rei — It’s inexorable”, Hanif wrote:

If we recall the reported course of events in the ACA director-general’s case, an ACA director had reported by letter to the IGP on July 4 last year against his DG and another, asking the IGP to treat the letter as a first information report. It is reported that he had also sent copies of the letter to the AG, among others…

In this particular case, there was no apparent useful response from the police or the others from July 4, 2006, to perhaps early March 2007. It would be interesting to know why. This inordinate delay could have been the cause of the complainant reporting to Parliament’s Select Committee on Integrity and Corruption. To the credit of the PSC, it acted expeditiously to make known that it would convene an enquiry into the allegations on March 12 by calling both complainant, the ACA director-general, as well as the previous IGP to clarify the situation. This was a far-reaching decision that could have made an enormous impact on the current battle against malfeasance and injustice.

The action of the PSC has served notice that proper redress must be given to a citizen’s grievances and that Parliament would hold the public services to account. In one fell stroke it had brought the tipping point closer. Continue reading ““Free fall of institutions” – can PSCI prove Tun Hanif wrong?”

The Barisan Nasional supreme council will meet in Kuala Lumpur tomorrow where party component leaders are expected to assess their preparations for the next general election.

All the heads of the 14 component parties were informed last week to attend the meeting but they were not given any indication of its agenda.

Will there be any Barisan Nasional leader who would dare to raise at the Barisan Nasional supreme council meeting tomorrow the hottest topic in the country –the Prime Minister’s three-year failure to deliver his top agenda to fight corruption and how to restore public confidence that the Abdullah premiership had not abandoned its anti-corruption pledge?

At his first Cabinet meeting as Prime Minister on 5th November 2003, Abdullah directed Ministers to set up a task force in their ministries to tighten procedures and reduce bureaucracy in efforts to fight corruption. Nothing has been heard of these Ministerial task forces.

At the post-Cabinet press conference, Abdullah even spoke of his hope to achieve “zero corruption” but admitted that it was going to be difficult.

Apart from the run-up to the March 2004 general election campaign, Abdullah’s focus on his priority to fight corruption had increasingly lessened with the passage of time and the terms “zero corruption” or “zero tolerance for corruption” have disappeared from his vocabulary. Continue reading “BN Supreme Council meeting – any BN leader dare to raise hottest topic in the country?”

EPF Forgot Sime Darby’s Lesson in UMBC
Richard Teo

The pension fund, EPF must surely think that money grows on trees when they decided to take-over RHB at a cost of $10 billion.

They have still not recovered from their early foray into Bank Islam and Bank Pertanian where they suffered massive losses.

Bank Islam alone in its audited profit of two years suffered losses of $2.3 billion.Either they are so naiive about business nvestment in the banking sector or they must be sadist looking for more punishment.

If there is any parallel investment failure in the banking sector we need not go too far for examples. Remember Sime Darby’s adventure with UMBC?Yes its brief foray caused them to lose more than $250 million in a short span of time.

Luckily in quick time UMBC was disposed off lock, stock and barrel and that was the first and last time Sime comtemplated venturing into the banking sector deemed ‘a profitable business which could bring long -term benefit’ by its CEO Mr. Azlan Zainol.

If it was profitable why did Sime’s investment in UMBC resulted in such a massive loss?

By his own admission Mr Azlan Zainol said they have no experience in Banking but they were going to engage professionals to run the bank.

Does this imply that UMBC was not run by experts in the banking field? Continue reading “EPF Forgot Sime Darby’s Lesson in UMBC”

Two news reports today do not inspire confidence that the trouble-prone national service (NS) training programme has learnt from all its weaknesses, defects, blunders, mishaps and disasters, including 12 trainee deaths in the past three years, viz:

• The failure to notify the second batch of 35,046 trainees two months before they are to report for training on March 18, as announced in November last year. Instead, notification was only issued three weeks before March 18. (Sin Chew Daily)
• The Star report “NS camp chief gets the boot” on the sacking with immediate effect of Camp commandant Zulkarnain Abdullah after he criticized the management of the three-star Kisana Beach Resort National Service (NS) camp in Kelantan, which had been described as “camp hell” by the first batch of trainees there. The most recent case of national service trainee death, Prema Elenchelian, 18, from Cheras Perdana, Kuala Lumpur on Feb. 27 is from the camp. Zulkarnain alleged that he was sacked for protecting the health, safety and welfare of the 400 trainees and criticizing the shabby conditions of the resort’s management company, Rimbun Kisana Development Sdn. Bhd.

The instant sacking of “whistleblower” camp commandant Zulkarnain does not inspire confidence that the National Service Training Department is prepared to give top priority to the interests and welfare of the national service trainees as compared to the profiteering camp and resort managements.

Zulkarnain, who received his dismissal letter from the NS Department on Thursday evening and was barred from attending the NS closing ceremony marking the end of the first NS programme this year, is clearly being punished for the New Straits Times report of the same day, “Trainees say it’s hell but company begs to differ”. Continue reading “NS mishaps and disasters – whistleblower Zulkarnain sacked instantly”

The Monday (March 12) meeting of the Parliamentary Select Committee on Integrity (PSCI) will be held as fixed although with an altered agenda.

The March 12 meeting had been decided by the PSCI at its meeting on 27th Feb. 2007 to hear the Anti-Corruption Agency (ACA) director-general, Datuk Zulkipli Mat Noor and former top ACA officer and “whistleblower”, Mohamad Ramli Manan on serious allegations of corruption in the ACA; but the Chairman of PSCI, Tan Sri Bernard Dompok, who is also Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, had on Thursday arbitrarily and unilaterally made a shock announcement of its cancellation in view of police investigations against Zulkifli and the filing of lawsuits by Ramli against his former boss and several government agencies.

I had faxed a protest to Bernard yesterday asking that the PSCI meeting on March 12 should be held as scheduled to hear Zulkipli and Ramli or to reconsider whether to hear the duo and the Select Committee’s role in the latest developments raising fundamental questions about national integrity, in particular in ACA and Police.

As the March 12 meeting to hear Zulkipli and Ramli was the formal decision of the PSCI meeting on 27th Feb. 2007 – the second day of its meeting to deal with issues concerning the scourge of the false identity card rackets in Sabah – any cancellation of the March 12 meeting could only be made by the PSCI itself and not unilaterally and arbitrarily by any one person.

Bernard has agreed that the PSCI meeting on Monday should proceed as scheduled to consider whether Zulkipli and Ramli should appear before the Select Committee. A new notice from Parliament informing all MPs on the PSCI of the Monday meeting had been sent out yesterday.

Although the invitation to Zulkipli and Ramli to the Select Committee meeting on Monday had been cancelled earlier and they had accordingly been informed, both of them should voluntarily attend the PSCI meeting in Parliament on Monday to honour their public undertaking of their preparedness to appear and tell all about the serious corruption allegations in the ACA. Continue reading “PSC Integrity meeting on Monday – Zulkipli and Ramli should voluntarily attend”

This is sequel and “happy ending” to the earlier post on Monday, Haslinda vs EPF on the inordinate delay in approving her application for EPF Withdrawal Scheme for Education to the extent that she faced the risk of losing her student status in a local public university.

I had promised to phone the new EPF Chairman Tan Sri Samsudin Osman the next day on Haslinda’s case, as on Wednesday, I was to be admitted into the Penang Lam Wah Ee Hospital for an eye operation.

But the EPF Chairman could not be contacted in his office at EPF Headquarters on Tuesday as he was away in Putrajaya, though I left word with his secretary as to the purpose of my call.

The next day, Haslinda sent me a sms to inform me that EPF had called and informed her that the cheque was ready for collection in Shah Alam branch.

I have just received this email from Haslinda with advice for others in her shoes: Continue reading “Haslinda vs EPF (2)”

Why are Klang Municipal Council (MPK) enforcement officers behaving so high-handedly with the ordinary public, as in the following clip from a camera phone on Star online report, “Fine mess, says tailor in MPK incident”.

What was all the hullaballoo about? Over parking ticket!

How can such things happen under the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi who has talked so much about a people-friendly, efficient and productive public service?

But nobody seems to be listenining as the situation is generally deteriorating from bad to worse, with more and more basic services – including basic courtesy to citizens – breaking down and getting out of control.

The following is the Star report of the deplorable episode in Klang yesterday: Continue reading “How can such things happen with Pak Lah as PM?”

I have this morning sent an urgent fax to the Chairman of the Parliamentary Select Committee on Integrity (PSCI), Tan Sri Bernard Dompok, who is also Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, proposing that the Select Committee meeting on Monday should be held as scheduled to hear the Anti-Corruption Agency (ACA) director-general Datuk Zulkipli Mat Noor and former top ACA officer and “whistleblower” Mohamad Ramli Manan or to reconsider whether to hear the duo and the Select Committee’s role in latest developments raising fundamental questions about national integrity, in particular in ACA and Police

I also placed on record my shock and protest at Bernard’s announcement yesterday arbitrarily cancelling the PSCI meeting on Monday to hear Zulkipli and Ramli on serious allegations of corruption in the ACA.

I stressed that as the March 12 meeting to hear Zulkipli and Ramli was the formal decision of the PSCI meeting on 27th Feb. 2007, the second day of its meeting to deal with issues concerning the scourge of the false identity card rackets in Sabah, any cancellation of the March 12 meeting could only be made by the PSCI itself and not unilaterally and arbitrarily by any one person.

Bernard said in his statement yesterday that the decision to cancel the Select Committee meeting on Monday was the decision of the majority of the Integrity Select Committee and New Straits Times today even reported that the decision was taken at a meeting of the Select Committee meeting yesterday.

There was no meeting of the Integrity Select Committee yesterday. I have checked with the MPs who attended the PSCI meeting of Feb. 27 and found that there is no clear majority in favour of the cancellation of the March 12 meeting. Continue reading “Is ACA chief Zulkifli the cause for the cancellation of the PSCI meeting on Monday?”

I was shocked when I was informed by the press at about 3 pm about the cancellation of the Parliamentary Select Committee on Integrity (PSCI) meeting on Monday, March 12, 2007 to hear the Anti-Corruption Agency (ACA) director-general, Datuk Zulkipli Mat Noor and former top ACA officer and “whistleblower”, Mohamad Ramli Manan on serious allegations of corruption in the ACA. The announcement had been made by the PSCI Chairman Tan Sri Bernard Compok.

I was formally informed of the cancellation of the PSCI meeting by a parliamentary officer at 4.40 p.m. by phone, who told me that the Secretary to Parliament, Datuk Mahmood bin Adam, had signed the notice for the cancellation of the PSCI meeting on Monday for it to be faxed out to the PSCI committee members.

This must be the first time in the history of Parliamentary Select Committees not only in Malaysia but in the Commonwealth where the media are given earlier notice than the MPs concerned of the cancellation of a Select Committee meeting.

As the March 12 meeting to hear Zulkipli and Ramli was the formal decision of the PSCI meeting on Feb. 28, when it met to deal with issues concerning the scourge of the false identity card rackets in Sabah, any cancellation of the Monday meeting could only be made by the PSCI itself and not improperly and unilaterally by the Chairman, Tan Sri Bernard Dompok.

As PSCI Chairman, Bernard must not buckle down to ulterior and improper pressures to unilaterally cancel the Parliamentary Select Committee meeting on Monday to hear Zulkipli and Ramli on ACA corruption . Continue reading “Monday PSCI meeting on Zulkifli/Ramli cancelled because of ulterior and improper pressures?”