by Tunku Aziz
MySinChew
2009-03-27

It is not for want of trying but, for the life of me, I find it difficult to take the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission’s self-trumpeted independence seriously. Since its much hyped up launch just weeks ago, its chief commissioner, Datuk Seri Ahmad Said Hamdan, has managed to put his mouth into overdrive while shifting his brains into reverse on at least two occasions. The F1 television advertisement has obviously got through to me at last.

The first was when he claimed that there was “good and strong evidence” against the Pakatan Rakyat menteri besar of Selangor, Tan Sri Khalid Ibrahim even before the MACC investigation into the “car and cows” saga had got into first gear.

More recently, he was again at his favourite game of shooting his mouth and, not content with that, he succeeded in shooting himself in the foot as well when he declared, to the chagrin and utter disbelief of us all, that there were “elements of misuse of power” in the case involving the Perak assembly speaker, V.Sivakumar. This was over the suspension of the “other” menteri besar Datuk Dr. Zambry Abdul Kadir and his six assembly men.

What are we to make of the MACC, Malaysia’s last great stab at corruption, when its chief commissioner is obviously intent, by his behaviour, on destroying any residual trace of public confidence in an organisation whose very creation has only been accepted tentatively and with a large dose of scepticism?

I am by nature, so I am told, a charitable man. However, I must admit to an irresistible temptation to go the whole hog and describe him as either a knave or a fool; or perhaps a bit of both for committing one gaffe after another in double quick succession. He will be remembered as the chief commissioner with a special talent for hastening, without even trying, the demise of the unloved MACC. Perhaps Ahmad Said is doing the country a great favour, and we should, on reflection, just say nothing and let him carry on regardless.

I am told that when I referred to the rebranding of the much reviled Anti-Corruption Agency as akin to decanting old wine into a new bottle in my first column in the Sin Chew Daily a few weeks ago, I had trodden on a few sensitive toes of folks who work in the cloistered world of Putrajaya. I am rather glad to know that even though the commissioners are generally thought to be disdainful of public opinion, they at least have sensitive toes. How useful sensitive toes are in the fight against corruption I am not able to say.

My point about the old wine seems to have been borne out by recent events involving our new-look commissioners. These self-same functionaries who developed “second guessing” into a fine art form under Mahathir’s special guidance on integrity cannot, in all seriousness, be expected to change their work practices which have become almost second nature to them.

The MACC will not be effective until all of Mahathir’s former hatchet men in the ACA of unhappy memory, and that effectively includes all the senior men and women, have been turfed out of that organisation and replaced with carefully selected officers from other law enforcement agencies as well as other professionally qualified men and women who have the right aptitude and attitude to the mission of fighting corruption. Remember, we are not talking about rocket science, just basic honesty and high ethical standards of behaviour.

Otherwise, the same corked wine will be served again and again to us, the unsuspecting public. These officers-turned-commissioners overnight have in one way or another blotted their copy book and they jolly well know it. They should be put out to grass where they can do no serious damage. In all fairness, the MACC should be given a chance to develop a life of its own minus of all the skeletons in the closet and the influence of those who operated under a regime with vastly different value systems as compared to today’s.

The current flurry of anti-corruption activity appears to be motivated solely by publicity seeking rather than by a clear practical strategy of identifying and isolating the disease rather than trying to treat the symptoms. I should like to suggest to the MACC that they start by looking into the corridors of power. Get all cabinet ministers and their deputies to account for their assets, including those of their spouses.

To be rich is not a crime as long as you can account for your wealth. A person elected or appointed to high public office must be prepared to subject himself to the closest public scrutiny. It would be helpful for the MACC commissioners to possess the uncanny intuitive powers of Sherlock Holmes to solve the mystery behind the wealth of individual ministers and other elected officials, but even without those abilities, it would be quite easy to conclude with a reasonable degree of certainty where all the wealth has come from. As Mr. Holmes would have said in a case as plainly as this, “It is elementary, my dear Watson.”

Our elected leaders generally enter politics with shallow pockets, but in next to no time, they become the nation’s glitterati, the nouveau riche determined to flaunt their high net worth for the entire world to see, with more than the occasional shopping trips to Milan, Rome and London for the little woman behind every great man.

Once they have dealt with our elected leaders, the MACC should move down to the next level comprising both the incumbents as well as the retired senior members of all law enforcement agencies, judges and the attorney(s)-general. Do this in a systematic way, without fear or favour, and we will soon put the fear of the Almighty in the country’s corrupt elites. This is how it is done in Hong Kong and Singapore. If we can confront corruption decisively on this level, we could even consider some form of conditional amnesty, on a case by case, for those not involved in “grand” corruption and who are willing to come clean and tell all, a full confession, no less.

They must be prepared to implicate those who have been involved in corrupt practices. In return, they will be treated and given protection as whistle blowers. Depending on the degree of their cooperation, they will be allowed to keep a percentage of their ill-gotten gains and given immunity from prosecution. This will have to be a conscious political decision with the sole object of undermining corruption to an extent that it will be regarded for all time as “a high risk, low return enterprise” and, therefore, simply not worth the effort.

The MACC can learn a great deal about corruption and how to get to the bottom of it all from this exercise. It is worth a try; it can open the way forward in the fight against systemic corruption that at present seems to be in favour of the opponent in the opposite corner with deep pockets. Let us start all over again, with a clean slate and show no mercy to the corrupt thereafter. This prescription is perhaps what the doctor recommends for that morally debilitating UMNO disease euphemistically referred to as “Money Politics.”