Although the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak kicked off his premiership five months ago with a pledge to raise efficiency and productivity of the public delivery system, even appointing the Gerakan President Tan Sri Dr. Koh Tsu Koon to be the Key Performance Indicators (KPI) Minister, the new Prime Minister has not been able to convince Malaysians that he is prepared to do whatever is necessary to check the rot in public service standards.
This hard truth was illustrated by the World Economic Forum (WEF)’s Global Competitiveness Report (GCR) 2009-2010 released a few days ago which saw Malaysia’s global competitiveness ranking dropped three positions to 24th from 21st spot last year.
This report was released ahead of WEF’s annual meeting of the New Champions, dubbed “Summer Davos”, in Dalian, China. The drop in Malaysia’s international competitiveness was the result of a much poorer assessment of its institutional framework – with every indicator in the area exhibiting a downward trend since 2007, causing Malaysia to tumble from 17th to 43rd position in this dimension in just two years.
Security in Malaysia was of particular concern with its ranking dropped 25 levels to 85th.
In the past decade, DAP leaders both inside and outside Parliament had been making a major issue of the worsening crime situation, which was one reason why the Royal Police Commission was set up by former Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi in 2004 to reform the Malaysian Police to reduce the incidence of rampant crime in the country and to make the country safe for Malaysians, tourists and investors.
Despite the Royal Police Commission’s 125 recommendations to create an efficient, incorruptible, professional world-class police service with three core functions to keep crime low, eradicate corruption and protect human rights, the crime situation has got from bad to worse in the past four years since the Report of the Royal Police Commission – until it became a major factor in Malaysia’s four-place drop in global competitiveness in the WEFs GCR 2009-2010.
The person who must bear the greatest blame for the worsening security situation in the country as to undermine’s Malaysia’s economic well-being and international competitiveness is none other than the Inspector-General of Police, Tan Sri Musa Hassan.
If Najib is serious about efficiency and productivity of public service delivery, we should be having a new IGP as there can be no worse KPI for Musa Hassan as IGP in the past three years than the WEF Global Competitiveness Report citing worsening security as a major reason for Malaysia’s three-point drop of Malaysia’s global competitiveness.
This is a powerful reason why Musa should not continue as IGP.
(Speech at the Menglembu DAP Branch anniversary dinner in Menglembu, Perak on Saturday 12th September 2009 at 9pm)