By Tunku Abdul Aziz

The very idea that the headman of the MACC be accorded a status equivalent to that of the Inspector-General of Police was so hilarious that I, a grown man, was driven to sobbing uncontrollably before I doubled up, laughing my head off. I have, in my lifetime, been through many strange and unusual situations, but I must confess to a sense of incredulity that members of the Anti-Corruption Advisory Board headed by former Chief Justice Tun Abdul Hamid Mohamad were prepared to risk their collective reputation by putting this recommendation forward. It is absurdity personified.

The other recommendations, including the establishment of a statutory commission on appointments, and the need to have interrogation rooms equipped with CCTV cameras, must rank as among the most facile suggestions ever made by a group of people who lay claim to expert knowledge and experience of a level considered sufficient to justify their being appointed to the advisory board.

In the event, by their earth-shattering recommendations, they have confirmed what I have known all along: they know nothing about fighting corruption or, for that matter, the chief commissioner, if he had to be “advised” on what equipment was needed to be put in place to make the interrogation process more open and transparent, then he has no business to be there in the first place. I make no apology for using the word interrogation in relation to the methods adopted by the MACC when dealing with witnesses. The word interview is yet to be part of the MACC’s corruption fighting lexicon.

The recommendation to equate the head of MACC with the Inspector- General of Police not only shows a pathetic lack of understanding on the part of the advisory board of the duties and responsibilities of the Inspector-General of Police and the officers under his command and control in the overall scheme of national security and public order priorities, but also insensitivity to the intelligence of the public. To believe that an untried jumped-up middle-rank public servant barely able to keep his head above water in the job is on par with the head of the Royal Malaysia Police (PDRM) is the height of fantasy. This is similar to proposing that the head of Rela be given the same status as the Chief of the Malaysian Armed Forces Staff.

The PDRM is an organisation with a 200-year tradition of public service. Admittedly there have been some hiccups along the way in its long history of protecting life and property, but it has been through several baptisms of fire, and not once has it been found wanting whenever the nation needed it desperately. The makeover from the ACA to the MACC has not resulted in any marked improvement in its performance. It is the same old wine in a brand-new Waterford decanter. The wine is still the same, not fit for the table.

My advice to the MACC chief commissioner, for what it is worth, is not to let his ambition exceed his abilities which have yet to be tested and proven. Until Malaysians are absolutely convinced that the organisation he has inherited by default, not his fault, naturally, can be relied upon to carry out its duties in the public interest, and thereby earn their respect and confidence, he will have absolutely no credibility or clout. A senior member of his staff has been to see me, of his own volition, for some advice. He is not happy with the ethical and moral dilemmas he has had to face under the present leadership, and it appears that unless staff morale is attended to sensibly and quickly, the chief commissioner’s tenure could be problematical.

So, as we have seen, public confidence, without which he might just as well close shop, is not a commodity that can be bought in a supermarket. He has to earn it the hard way; persuading the government to dress him up to look like a poor imitation of the Inspector-General of Police is not going to help him succeed in his job. People have yet to see the colour of his money, in a manner of speaking. He can say what he likes about doing a great job, but people want results. They are his judges, and on present showing he is seen to be long on self-publicity and rather short on productive effort. I know from inside information he has been busy hiring spin doctors to tart up his image and that of his organisation. Don’t throw good money after bad because public trust and confidence will not return no matter how much money is spent on cosmetic surgery.

MACC’s much touted independence is under close public scrutiny. I am told, again on the internal grapevine, that he insists that every MACC function must have a minister present. MACC should not have too much to do with ministers as this could cause embarrassment should it have to arrest them for corruption. But I suppose MACC’s independence stops short of calling corrupt ministers to account, and so everyone is a winner except the nation.

I see that the MACC director of investigation is probing the labyrinth of commercial networks and dealings in search of “elements of corruption”, as he puts it, in the Sime Darby affair. The director of investigation is a fine man, extremely good at preparing slides for Powerpoint presentations but he would not know where to begin. It is a job for trained forensic accountants from the big audit firms with international connections. I know what the outcome will be — there is no evidence of corruption. Remember the Perwaja episode?