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Malaysia's weak war on
graft
By
Anil Netto
PENANG, Malaysia - Deputy Premier
Abdullah Badawi's call for a corruption-free Malaysia
has sparked a debate into the extent of graft in the
country.
Abdullah said on Monday that he was
concerned over Anti-Corruption Agency (ACA) statistics
that showed that more than half the 1,352 people
arrested for graft been 1998 and 2002 were civil
servants.
"Corruption is a terrible disease that
can hurt our competitiveness and image because it brings
about a loss of public confidence in the civil service,"
said Abdullah, due to succeed Prime Minister Mahathir
Mohamad in October. The deputy premier said a clean
image was vital so that the public, the business
community and foreign investors would have a positive
perception of the civil service.
Malaysia ranked
33rd in Transparency International's Corruption
Perceptions index last year. Although this was a slight
improvement from the 36th place in 2001, it was well
below the 23rd position achieved in 1995.
Abdullah said what was needed was a change in
the mindset and attitude of civil servants to be
trustworthy and to resist the temptation of "easy
money".
His comments came just a couple of days after
a young couple on a date at the Kuala Lumpur City Center
park complained that they were issued a summons for
"indecent behavior" after they had refused to pay off
city council enforcement officers. The complaint alleged
that the couple were told the summons would involve
between RM300 and RM500 (US$79-$132) and the officers
then offered to help them settle it at a reduced rate
without issuing a summons.
Many Malaysians
reading this news report would not have been surprised,
to say the least. The incident sparked a torrent of
debate and discussion as to what should be done to wipe
out corruption in Malaysia.
It is understandable
why Abdullah is so keen to clean up Malaysia's act when
he assumes power. Competition among Southeast Asian
nations and China for foreign direct investment in the
region has become intense. As scarce funds flow to North
Asia, the need for reforms in countries like Malaysia
assumes greater urgency.
But many critics have
been quick to point out that by focusing on civil
servants, Abdullah risks missing the forest for the
woods. The biggest obstacle to improving transparency in
Malaysia and wiping out graft is the worrying extent to
which politics and business are intertwined. This close
nexus between politics and business inevitably results
in cronyism and political patronage.
No sooner
had Abdullah spoken than questions started being asked
about the involvement of his brother, Ibrahim, in a
consortium that would buy a Malaysia Airlines (MAS)
subsidiary in a favorable deal that was said to
guarantee returns over nine years. Ibrahim's company
reportedly has a 51 percent stake in the consortium.
The deal prompted an opposition parliamentarian
from Parti Islam SeMalaysia (PAS), Husam Musa, to write
to Abdullah asking whether the privatization deal would
lead to a loss for MAS and the nation. "If the
revenue-guarantee clause is true, then the contract is
no longer privatization but a profit guarantee by the
government to [the purchasing consortium], where family
ties exist between the main shareholder of the company
and the deputy prime minister," he was reported as
saying.
Abdullah's call for an end to corruption
has a parallel. Soon after Mahathir became premier in
1981, he unveiled the rallying cry for his new
administration in April 1982: "Bersih, Cekap, dan
Amanah" (Clean, Efficient and Trustworthy). But by
July 1983, that policy was in tatters after investigator
Jalil Ibrahim was found dead - strangled and stuffed
into a large suitcase in Hong Kong. Jalil had been sent
to Hong Kong to investigate massive losses in Bumiputra
Malaysia Finance, a subsidiary of state-owned Bank
Bumiputra.
From then on, scandal after financial
scandal plagued the Mahathir administration, the largest
and yet to be resolved involving spectacular unexplained
losses totaling RM10 billion at Perwaja Steel, a
government-backed heavy-industry project shrouded under
allegations of irregularities.
One of the
biggest stumbling blocks in the battle against
corruption is that the ACA is hardly independent,
reporting as it does to the Prime Minister's Department.
This major structural flaw makes in almost impossible
for the agency to investigate high-level corruption
involving ministers and senior officials without
clearance from the very top. Where such cases are
actually investigated, the probe can take years to be
completed, often with a finding of insufficient
evidence. Many have called for the ACA to be converted
into an independent commission against corruption,
accountable to an independent authority.
It doesn't
help that the ruling-coalition parties have extensive
business interests either directly or via proxies.
Political patronage and privatization have been abused
to consolidate politically linked businesspeople and
firms. What's more, affirmative-action policies favoring
the economically disadvantaged Malays and other
indigenous groups have been abused to assist
well-connected officials, ministers and businesspeople.
This would include the lack of open tenders for
infrastructure projects and the special allocation of
shares and licenses to those who are not exactly
disadvantaged.
Critics have pointed out that the
battle against corruption should start from the top
through "leadership by example" - another Mahathir
administration slogan that failed to inspire. Unless
Abdullah has the political will to tackle the structural
and deeply rooted systemic problem of graft, few critics
expect his campaign against corruption to amount to
much.
(Copyright 2003 Asia Times Online Co, Ltd.
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