The Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz gave a very novel explanation about the anti-corruption campaign of the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi — saying that the government had done a lot to fight corruption but such information was not properly channeled to the public.
Speaking at the World Ethics and Transparency Forum on Monday, Nazri said a public relations blitz to outline the national drive against corruption and the promotion of integrity is in the offing.
He said the government did not have a good public relations unit to counter criticisms that not enough was being done to stamp out corruption and improve integrity.
If Nazri is right, then the only problem of Abdullah’s anti-corruption campaign is one of P.R rather than one of lack of political will, but Nazri would belong to a very tiny number of people who would resort to such a novel way to wish away the grave problem of corruption in the country.
How will Nazri explain Malaysia’s plunge of seven places from 37th to 44th position in the last three years during the Abdullah premiership from 2003 to 2006 in the Transparency International (TI) Corruption Perception Index (CPI) when the five-year National Integrity Plan launched by Abdullah in April 2004 had targeted improvement to at least 30th position in 2008? Can this shocking plunge in Malaysia’s TI CPI to 44th position (when Malaysia was ranked No. 23 in 1995) be attributed to poor PR?
Is Nazri’s novel explanation the official position of the Cabinet, the Anti-Corruption Agency (ACA) and the Institute of Integrity Malaysia (IIM) or is it just his personal view?
This is important for if it is the official view of the Prime Minister, the Cabinet and the various anti-corruption bodies, then there is nothing more that needs to be done than to engage an expensive PR firm to burnish Malaysia’s image on integrity and anti-corruption.
Malaysia will become an international laughing-stock if the government is serious in trying to reduce Abdullah’s anti-corruption campaign into a mere P.R problem when everybody knows that the the root cause is the lack of political will to create a society with zero-tolerance for corruption.
This is why the 18 “high-profile” corruption cases involving “big fishes” had been allowed to escape into the South China Sea although there was a lot of fanfare in the early months of the Abdullah premiership that they would be caught and be brought to justice to demonstrate the seriousness of the anti-corruption campaign of the new Prime Minister.
Early this month, the newly-appointed Perak ACA director Samsiah Abu Bakar opened fire against heads of government departments who had ignored corruption among staff.
She said that she would seek clarification from those who had not taken action against such staff.
She said she was shocked when she went through the records as there are some 21 cases dating back to 2001 which had not been attended to, including warnings and suspension of salary.
She said these are cases which could not be prosecuted in court due to a lack of evidence but there were elements of corruption involved. The ACA subsequently recommended departmental action against the staff concerned.
Samsiah made the statement some two weeks after it was revealed that the Chief Secretary to the Government, Tan Sri Mohd Sidek Hassan had issued a directive to all heads of departments giving them six months to take disciplinary action against corrupt civil servants.
At a meeting of the Chief Secretary with all directors-general, ACA officials tabled a report on 585 civil servants allegedly on the take between 2002 and 2006.
However, due to lack of evidence, they could not be produced in court. ACA had recommended that disciplinary action, including demotion, transfer and salary freeze, be taken against those implicated in the cases.
Parliament expects a full report on the actions taken against the 585 civil servants (including the 21 cases referred to by Samsiah) for corrupt practices, though there was not enough evidence to sustain court actions.
In this connection, Parliament will also want to know the number of political leaders at both the national and state government leaders who had been investigated by the ACA and whom the ACA had been satisfied had been guilty of corruption but there was not enough evidence to produce them in court — and whether the ACA had recommended to the Prime Minister, Mentri Besar or Chief Minister concerned for action to be taken against them, and the number of such political leaders involved.
I would like to highligh one point on the recent fiasco about RM2 million MP constituency development allocation.
Several BN MPs are shying away from announcing how they spend their RM2million constituency development allocation, which Opposition MPs are denied of it, citing reasons such as poor internet connection and penetration in their respective constituencies etc.
I believe the argument is not about where you announce it. You of course can announce it on the internet, the best place for people to check on the details anytime and anywhere during the era of ICT, but I would agree that if they do not have a website, they can always call for a press conference and just announce the list.
After all, it is not a matter of how they want to do it, but it is a matter of whether they have the political will to do it.
LKS
Hopefully you have backup copies of your last blogs. Keep blogging. Happy CNY!
Regards
There is no political will to fight corruption. There is a political will to pretend that there is such a will and to improve on public relations to show case it.
There cannot exist a political will to eradicate corruption when corruption/money politics is the raisons d’être for and perk of political and public office.
Proof of this from the above post : Not only no action has been taken on the 21 cases dating back to 2001 mentioned by Perak ACA director Samsiah Abu Bakar but also the ACA’s report of 585 civil servants allegedly on the take between 2002 and 2006 tabled at the meeting of the Chief Secretary with all directors-general.
Re : “However, due to lack of evidence, they could not be produced in court. ACA had recommended that disciplinary action, including demotion, transfer and salary freeze, be taken against those implicated in the casesâ€Â.
This does not make sense. If there is no evidence for 585 civil servants to be tried in court, there should equally be no sufficient evidence for them to be subject to “disciplinary action, including demotion, transfer and salary freezeâ€Â.
There is a similar lack of political will against the 14 high profile cases bequeathed from the time of Mahathir’s administration.
There is a similar lack of political will to call the ACA to investigate on instances of money politics. Politicians found guilty of money politics are not subject to country’s criminal laws like the Penal code or Corruption Act but are instead subject to party discipline based on political party’s internal rules. In the last UMNO general assembly some of those implicated in money politics were even voted by the party delegates into a highest party positions in answer to the farce about fighting corruption!
What has been done here to appease public clamor to clean up corruption is to take action against a few unlucky civil servants who happened to get caught and use them as deterrent as well as examples to “showcase†political determination to fight against corruption. Even then the guilty are treated with kid’s gloves. Anything heavier is unconscionable since their bosses are also at it in a larger scale. Hopefully, this will distract public attention from what the top politicians have been and are doing.
To me, the pretence to combat graft is a farce so shallow that it imposes on even the naïve.
There is however a political will to promote, establish and maintain a “clean†image of combating corruption with the public (“Public relationsâ€Â).
Public relations in this connection are admittedly not so successful thus far. The ways to cream public funds and coffers are always seen through, too often. There is a political will to improve the methods of ‘creamingâ€Â, the double talk and polish the hypocrisy of the integrity and anti graft theme.
No action but just talk and PR will not eliminate corruption. Because there was no PR it does not justify the increase in corruption.
People will just brush aside the talk and keep on taking the money.
There is very weak will power to tackle this menace.
“However, due to lack of evidence, they could not be produced in court.”
Yeah, sure. We know what this really means.
The standard required to establish a prima facie case against any civil servant for alleged corrupt practices may be “too high” but it should not prevent disciplinary action(s) – short of dismissal – by the head of department after a reasonable opportunity to be heard is given.
The standard used does not need to be the “prima facie” standard which is required in court. The ‘charge’ need not be for “corrupt practices” but of a lesser ‘offence’ – of some wrongdoing committed in breach of General Orders.
We need to see heads of departments taking some disciplinary actions. The problem? What if the head of department is himself or herself not free from accusations of malpractices short of corruption?
where got corruption? only take money from chinese// like paying tax for doing business in persekutuan tanah melayu. cannot arr??
The Anti Corruption Agency does deal with corruption cases. Example involving between hundreds and thousands of ringgit. The ACA is very gracious. They give ample time of repentance.
Corruption is not a dirty word insofar as UMNO is concerned. At first our Pak Lah thought that such dirty things should be removed but somehow along the way his thoughts were hijacked and brainwashed and probably would have been told that UMNO cannot survive without corruption. So he has to follow the majority for the sake of UMNO survival. They know they cannot compete on level grounds and obviously corruption is the best choice, no need to compete and no need to work at all but still can become rich. Hence the lazy bumps naturally adopted this best methodology.
NAzri has somehow shown one remarkable consistency. He has consistently put his foot in his mouth. Also, there is no denying that he, like many other BN politicians, have one thing in common. They all have the gift of the gab which is wide enough for the effortless flow of garbage from their heads.
Corruption is AIDS (Acute Income Deficiency Syndrome)-related. Sufferers are always under the illusion that they are not rich enough and do not have big-enough cars, glamorous-enough mansions and so on. Like Aids, sufferers are vulnerable and develop a host of other secondary diseases. And, like Aids, any attempt to sweep the problem under the carpet is only postponing the day of reckoning and causing the pent-up horrors of a Tsunami waiting to break loose on the tender social fabric of the nation.
We should all be wearing a pink ribbon for ‘Anti-Corruption and Pro-Integrity’.
Guan Eng questions jump in cost for BORR
BUTTERWORTH: How did the construction cost of the Butterworth Outer Ring Road (BORR) jump from RM410mil to RM700mil?
This was the question posed by DAP secretary-general Lim Guan Eng to the Government, adding that Works Minister Datuk Seri S. Samy Vellu had previously quoted RM410mil in Parliament when responding to a question by Bagan MP Lim Hock Seng.
“Now, we read in the newspapers that the amount is RM700mil. Why has the cost suddenly gone up?†he asked at a press conference at the BORR Sungai Nyior toll plaza here yesterday.
Lim also asked for the concession agreement between the Government and BORR concession holder, Lingakaran Luar Butterworth Sdn Bhd, to be made public.
“The public has the right to know the terms and conditions in the agreement,†he said.
The collection at the Sungai Nyior toll has been deferred till further notice following public objection.
///Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz said that the government had done a lot to fight corruption but such information was not properly channeled to the public.///
After having done a lot to fight corruption, but corruption is still rampant, the government has either not done enough, or the government has allowed government services to be legally corrupt.
The public are only waiting to hear about the outcome of the 18 cases which have been mentioned for years now. Is the government setting up a committee to consider how to channel such information properly?