The verdict is now in 27 months after the Royal Police Commission Report in May 2005 to create an incorruptible, efficient, professional and world-class police service to reduce crime, eradicate corruption and respect human rights — a police force which is not only more rotten than before Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi became Prime Minister, but with the Anti-Corruption Agency (ACA) and the Attorney-General’s Chambers equally tarnished for “Harap Pagar, Pagar Makan Padi”!

This harsh judgment was not made by Opposition leaders and NGO critics of government, but by a venerable pillar of the establishment, the former and longest-serving Inspector-General of Police and Deputy Chairman of the Royal Police Commission, Tun Hanif Omar in his Sunday Star column with a title which is an indictment on all the three “vital institutions” — “THE FENCE THAT EATS THE RICE”!

Hanif’s article is even more condemnatory of the rot in the police force than the Royal Police Commission report when everyone should be singing praises for a reformed police after the implementation of the Commission’s 125 recommendations to create an incorruptible, efficient and professional world-class police service.

Instead this is what Hanif wrote yesterday:

I briefed the Royal Commission that police corruption was so extensive that a very senior ACA officer had confided in me and another top retired police officer that 40% of the senior officers could be arrested without further investigations — strictly on the basis of their lifestyles. One state police chief had a net worth of RM18mil. My friend and I had watched the force getting deeper and deeper into the morass of corruption. ..

“I could not help telling the ACA officer that he really had his work cut out for him and that his fight against corruption was the most important fight facing the country but I hoped that he could effectively stamp out this corruption without destroying our PDRM which had done such yeomen service to the nation.

But what has the police to show in the follow-up to the Royal Police Commission Report?

Hanif lamented that although the Police Royal Commission Report was made public two-and-a-quarter years ago, “yet PDRM has still not burnished its image”.

He wrote:

It is still mired in controversy. Need I say why? It is so clearly divided into at least two groups at the top and, consequently, affects the officers below. That is why one group carries out arrests of alleged crime kingpins and the other group and the ACA have allegedly interrogated the arresting officers in the belief that the first group is eliminating the informants of the other group.
“Whom can we believe when one group is headed by the IGP and the other by a police director backed by the Deputy Minister of Internal Security? They are at opposite poles. Both the IGP and the Deputy Minister of Internal Security have allegations of corruption thrown at them but both have been investigated by the ACA, the content of the reports to the AG we do not know. What we know is that the AG has absolved both of them. So, between the two, whom are we to believe?

That is why the IPCMC is so important — so that we have an instrument to get to the truth. By not letting the IPCMC see the light of day after such a long study by the AG speaks volumes of the AG’s understanding of the seriousness of the problem and its effect on the criminal justice system. The AG himself has lost his credibility for this recalcitrance and for his “defeats” in recent high profile cases as well as for some high profile cases not seeing the light of day after so long in his hands: and this is disastrous because his Chambers is the second other vital institution in the criminal justice system.

So, whither go our vital institutions? The ACA is another vital institution. It is its abject failure to act hard against the highly corrupt at the very top levels all these years that has allowed this pervasive corruption culture to thrive and grow within the public sector. Let me say it here: you will not stamp out corruption by only giving talks or by tackling only the lower rankers. The lower rankers are emboldened by the top-level corruption that could get away.

All the heads of these three “vital institutions” must hold their heads in shame at such a sweeping and most valid condemnation by the most famous IGP in the country.

What has the Inspector-General of Police got to say for crime and corruption getting worse than even before the establishment of the Royal Police Commission 45 months ago?

What has the ACA director-general got to say for the failure to arrest and prosecute a single top police officer in the past 27 months although “40% of the senior officers could be arrested without further investigations — strictly on the basis of their lifestyles”?

What has the Attorney-General got to say for his total lack of professional commitment in procrastinating on the IPCMC issue for over two years, refusing to submit an IPCMC Bill to Parliament?

But there are other persons who should also hold their heads in shame at Hanif’s indictment yesterday — the Prime Minister and the entire Cabinet.

The Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi is in danger of becoming the worst Minister in charge of police in the 50-year history of the nation, with galloping crime and rampant corruption.

Instead of being one of his greatest achievements, the Royal Police Commission will become one of his greatest baggages unless Abdullah is prepared to be a hands-on Minister to ensure the full implementation of the Commission’s 125 recommendations to create an incorruptible, efficient and world-class police service.

Let all Malaysians send a clear message to the Prime Minister — the 50th Merdeka Anniversary celebrations will only be meaningful if he summons the political will to check the worsening rot in the three “vital institutions” of the Police, Anti-Corruption Agency and Attorney-General’s Chambers by announcing the formation of IPCMC before August 31!