Day: December 9, 2012

Today, December 9, is the International Anti-Corruption Day designated by the United Nations to raise awareness of corruption and the UN Convention against Corruption (UNCAC) in combating and preventing corruption.

However, although this is the 9th International Anti-Corruption Day since its first observance in 2004, the Malaysian Government had simply ignored it – which is a reflection of its lack of commitment and political will to combat corruption, in particular “grand corruption” of top political and government leaders.

The failure of the “reform” government of Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak to observe the International Anti-Corruption Day this year is a great disappointment, as it was only ten days ago that Najib had apologised for “any oversight” of the UMNO/Barisan Nasional government in the past, couched in the most flowery of language, viz:

“Where on this earth is there no rain, which sea has no turbulence? Where on this earth are there people, or leaders, or companies or parties that have never stumbled or committed a mistake? As the leadership of the party and government, we put our palms together in apology for any oversight.”

I want to ask Najib whether he would apologise for Malaysia’s poor record in fighting corruption under his watch as Prime Minister, falling to the lowest rankings of Transparency International (TI) Corruption Perception Index (CPI) for four consecutive years from 2009-2012 – a record worse than previous Prime Ministers?

This concerns his own “oversight” as Prime Minister in the past four years and not the “oversight” of the previous UMNO/BN Prime Ministers in the past five decades! Continue reading “Will Najib apologise for Malaysia’s poor record in fighting corruption under his watch as PM, falling to lowest rankings of TI CPI”

By Martin Jalleh
9 Dec 2012

The General Elections beckons and it looks as though the Prime Minister (PM) has gone berserk. He is making comments most bizarre! He blurts out statements beyond human logic!

Soon after the last General Elections he had warned his political party that either it changes or the government that it so dominates will be changed by the people.

He now surprisingly admits that Umno needs to change (The Malaysian Insider, 7 Dec., 2012). In other words, his party has not changed – which in fact clearly contradicts what he and his cohorts have been saying! Continue reading “Nonsensical Najib must be very nervous!”

Steve Oh
CPI
Dec 8, 2012

The fires of May 13, 1969 still burn in the mind of older Malaysians who lived through the racial riots that swept through the major cities of the peninsula.

I was a teenager then and the sight of my father quickly putting on his shoes to go out to our middle-class and predominantly Chinese neighbourhood to call for the menfolk to come out and defend their homes if the Malays attacked us was hard to reconcile with the ‘happy-go-lucky’ life we were enjoying.

We could hear the drums beating in the distance where there was a Malay kampung. And for his efforts my father came back fuming that an old Chinese woman had scolded him for being a ‘busybody’. It turned out she was also a distant relative.

A month before Penang had seen a curfew when a policeman was killed after a politically linked incident. Tension was high. But not all of us were bent on spilling racial blood.

We made sure that the Malay teacher and his mother who lived in our street was safe. I checked with my Malay friend and his family who lived in an adjoining suburb (which was predominantly Chinese) that they were safe. We took care of one another and there was no incident in all the neighborhoods around us – Chinese protecting Malays and Malays protecting Chinese.

Not everyone, in fact few Malaysians considered in total, were infected with the madness. Continue reading “Everyone will have something to lose”