Some 40 months after Abdullah’s pledge to “walk the talk” to eradicate corruption, Malaysia is faced with the worst crisis of national integrity in the 40-year history of the Anti-Corruption Agency and 50-year history of the nation, with a spate of corruption scandals in the past two weeks, viz:
- Serious corruption allegations against the Anti-Corruption Agency director-general Datuk Zulkipli Mat Noor;
- Serious corruption allegations against the Deputy Internal Security Minister, Datuk Mohd Johari Baharun; in the Emergency Ordinance (EO) “freedom for sale” scandal; and
- Serious allegation by the Chief Justice, Tun Ahmad Fairuz Sheikh Abdul Halim of judges who accept bribes.
Internationally, Malaysia’s anti-corruption perception had been on a downward spiral ever since Abdullah’s takeover as Prime Minister.
Only last week, there was more bad news for Malaysia and Abdullah’s 40-month premiership.
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.
In the past four years, Malaysia’s ranking on the TI CPI had already dropped seven places from No. 37 in 2003 to No. 44 in 2006 — making nonsense of the National Integrity Plan launched by Abdullah in May 2004 with its objective for Malaysia to achieve at least No. 30 ranking within five years, i.e. by next year 2008!
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.
In 1996, China was ranked the No.12 in Asia with a score of 8, but it has now leapt to No. 7, breathing down the neck of Malaysia, with a score of 6.29, only 0.04 marginally less than Malaysia’s score of 6.25. India was ranked No. 8 with a score of 6.86 in 1996, and although it is ranked No. 9, its score has improved to 6.67, or 0.42 behind Malaysia.
If Malaysia does not pull up our bootstraps in the fight against corruption, we will soon be losing out to China and India — and it must be regarded as a national shame and tragedy if in any future international corruption ranking, Malaysia is regarded as so corrupt as even to lose out to China and India!
Parliament must seriously address and debate the worst corruption crisis in the nation’s history, eroding public confidence in the integrity of institutions mandated to fight corruption, like the ACA.
In the past 39 years, the ACA had been regarded as a “paper tiger”, with only power to go after the “ikan bilis” but not after the “ikan yu’s”even in the Abdullah administration as proven by the disappearance of the 18 “big fishes” which had escaped into the “high seas”.
A fundamental line has now been crossed by the ACA, when public doubts and skepticism are no more confined to its effectiveness or impotence to deal with the “high-profile”corrupt despite the worsening corruption problem in the country as reflected by the 21-place drop from No. 23 to No. 44 in the Transparency International Corruption Perception Index in the past 12 years from 1995 to 2006.
For the first time in its 40-year history, public doubts and skepticism about the ACA have now extended to its very core purpose, the heart and soul of ACA on its integrity and incorruptibility. — with the ACA Director-General himself alleged to be guilty of corruption.
This has been aggravated by the farce illustrated by the following scenario:
Question One: Who is investigating the serious corruption allegations against the Anti-Corruption Agency (ACA) Director-General Datuk Seri Zulkipli Mat Noor?
Answer: Police
Question Two: Who is investigating the serious corruption allegations against Deputy Internal Security Minister, Datuk Mohd Johari Baharum of the EO “freedom for sale” corruption?
Answer: ACA.
Question Three: Will the ACA on the one hand and the Police and Internal Security Ministry on the other scratch each other’s back and exonerate one another?
Who can give a categorical answer in the negative? In fact, will the majority of Malaysians give “Yes” instead of “No” to the question?
Unless the answer to Question Three is in the categorical negative for all or the overwhelming majority of Malaysians, then Malaysia has a very serious integrity question about the institutions in the country mandated to fight corruption and uphold law and order — the ACA, the Police, the Attorney-General’s Chambers.
If Abdullah is serious about honouring his “zero-tolerance for corruption” pledge, there should at least be three policy initiatives in the Royal Address to give concrete form to his commitment to combat corruption, viz:
- a Royal Commission of Inquiry on Corruption, probing the ACA and why corruption had worsened in the past three years instead of improving as well as the efficacy of asset declarations by government leaders, including Cabinet Ministers.
- 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.
- ACA director-general Zulkifli going on leave until outcome of investigations into serious corruption allegations made against him by former top ACA officer and whistleblower Ramli Manan.
But there was none of these government initiatives although the Royal Address did emphasise that “efforts to instill integrity and eliminate corruption and abuse of power must be intensified”. After the unprecedented 91% parliamentary majority in the March 2004 general election and 40 months, the time for “statement of intent” is long past and it is time for action and results.
The ACA did not act independently and professionally when it did a most unusual thing in releasing selectively information to exonerate its director-general by revealing details of Zulkipli’s various declaration of assets in public service — when the serious corruption allegations against Zulkipli was being investigated by the police.
This reminds me of my query to the ACA in July 2005 why it had failed to take action in the case of the former Sabah Chief Minister and Federal Minister for Land and Co-operatives, Datuk Seri Osu Sukam, in its investigations as to how he could have amassed such astronomical wealth as to gamble RM158.7 million, lose RM31.6 million and run up RM7.1 million debts in a London casino a year after political retirement, apart from bigger gambling debts in other casinos as well as in other countries like Australia.
I had pointed out that in Osu Sukam’s 15 years in various public offices from Deputy Works Minister in 1986 to Sabah Chief Minister 1999-2001, Osu would have at least made four declarations of his assets to the Prime Minister.
All these four declaration of assets to the Prime Minister should be the basis on which the ACA should launch a thorough investigation as to whether Osu had corruptly and illegally amassed such astronomical wealth as to enable him to gamble hundreds of millions of ringgit in various casinos in London and Australia a year after his political retirement.
Or are declarations of assets whether by political leaders in government or top government officers so unsatisfactory and defective that they are worthless tools in the battle to promote national integrity and combat corruption? This is why the efficacy of assets declarations by government leaders, whether political or civil servant, should also be a subject of a Royal Commission Inquiry.
Now erosion of public confidence in the integrity of institutions have spread further to include the Parliamentary Select Committee on Integrity, as a result of its majority decision yesterday to cancel the hearings for Zullkipli and Ramli earlier scheduled for tomorrow.
I am barred from parliamentary standing orders from disclosing what transpired at yesterday’s Select Committee meeting, but there is no hiding my deep disappointment and the adverse public reactions to the latest developments. As I said on my blog, I am mulling over whether I should continue to sit on the Parliamentary Select Committee on Integrity.
[Speech (8) on Royal Address debate in Parliament 21.3.07]