The Chief Secretary Accepts Corruption Is A Problem

The Chief Secretary to the Government, Tan Sri Shamsudin Osman, has made a stupendous discovery (New Straits Times, 27 August 01, p1), so dramatic that he had to say it in the usual roundabout fashion of bureaucrats: that corruption is a problem in the civil service or, as he coyly puts it, greed is the root of graft. Thirty years after the Anti-Corruption Agency is set up, and with laws regularly tightened to control corruption, he says the law enforcement agencies "should have an internal control system that can act against people who commit corrupt practice". In other words, these agencies slept while greed encouraged graft. No one in charge bothered to address it; no one still does. Meanwhile, corruption became a cancer. It has spread to all levels of society; it is so bad now that any transaction requires the grease of money.

The whole system is corrupt to the core. The government does not act against the highest in the land when they are openly caught with the proceeds of corruption. The UMNO vice president and former mentri besar of Selangor was caught with more than RM2 million in foreign currencies in Darwin. He is let off with a soft slap on his wrist, and allowed to continue with his political life. Thieves rob a former senior civil servant and now a figure in the corporate world of RM1.5 million in jewellery and RM500,000 in cash. There is not a beep from the anti-corruption agency of how he came to such large money which he keeps in his house.

Well-connected individuals maintain accounts with Tabung Haji, the Pilgrimage Board, of tens of millions of ringgit. You cannot deposit more than RM3 million per individual, but that is for the unconnected. A member of its board regularly deposited millions of ringgit well beyond the maximum allowed. There is a law which allows regulatory agencies to demand a listing of assets if it believes one lives beyond one's means. The first time it was used, two mentris besar lost their jobs. Now that rule is used only when you cross swords with the government.

So when the Chief Secretary makes fatuous statements like "Greed is the motivating fator behind a corrupt practice", he does not mean what he says, and has no discernible reason to act. He reveals a truth that is so well known that no one is shocked at the figures of corruption bandied about even in government circles. Corruption is not only pandemic in the upper reaches of the civil service. It is as prevalent in the cabinet. The Prime Minister and the law enforcement agencies did nothing when one cabinet minister providing a living of a few hundred thousand ringgit a month to her son-in-law; nor when a man is given contracts worth billions after he proved his utter failure in other projects. I heard recently of a senior civil servant who was forced to retire because he did not offer a share to his immediate superior from the RM400 million ringgits he handled for a public agency.

But let a poorly paid police man or a post man or an office boy take a couple of ringgit for a favour done, the full weight of the law would descend on him. That would not root out corruption. Nor would it when the anti-corruption agency routinely clear anyone in high office and in good odour is regularly cleared when the facts suggest otherwise. No senior official has ever been convicted of corruption recently. They have not even been charged in court. The Anti-Corruption Agency sleeps when it should not, and rushes in to investigate those the government wants out of the way when it should not. This cynicism encourages corruption, not greed. Tan Sri Shamsudin, in his remarks, does not understand what he talks of.

And it only compounds the problem. For what he says is the pro forma statement of intent while giving the green light to civil servants to continue to be corrupt. The law requires senior civil servants and politicians in the government to submit their list of assets to the Prime Minister. It is kept secret. Many on that list should be in Sungei Buloh not Putra Jaya. The government does not want to root it out. It encourages it. Indeed it uses it to retain their support. Recently, the SMIs were given a million ringgit in special loans, only a quarter need be returned. How do I know this? Dealers in specialist cars are crowded with people placing orders with cash for imported exotic motor cars. What better way to show that one has arrived than to be seen in a high end Mercedes Benz or BMW bought with money meant as working capital.

To target enforcement offices, as Tan Sri Shamsudin does, is to miss the point. "Unlike other government officers, enforcement officers are faced with temptations and lucrative offers because offenders will find ways to avoid being prosecuted or punished and are willing to pay their way out," he said in an interview with the National Economic Action Council's (NEAC) communication team. But he fools himself if he believes in what he says. When a government runs on the belief that what is said with no intention that be taken serious, matters would right itself, these statements are the fig leaft that it covers itself to hide their nakedness in corruption. However you look at it, corruption is well nigh uncontrollable. It has become the perk of every worker, not just those in enforcement or the public works deprtments.

When ministers, judges, civil servants are proud that the ACA has investigated them, the rot has set in. This was not how it was two decades ago. Corruption is a way of life. It is a rare man who does not hand a bribe for what needs to be done. But the government cannot admit it. So why does the Chief Secretary to the Government defend the indefensible? Especially when shows no intention to right the problem. In the past four days, there is no word from him to right the problem he describes. If he does not intend to act, he should keep his mouth shut.

M.G.G. Pillai
pillai@mgg.pc.my