Honourable Justice KG Balakrishnan said: “The pervasive culture of
graft provokes pessimism about the quality of governance” and turns
every social institution upside down. There is no doubt that corruption
causes massive human deprivations and creates income inequalities and
forms webs of illegal obligations and impedes protection and promotion
of human rights and ultimately violates a very wide spectrum of human
rights deeply.
While we realise that corruption destroys nation building, there is
continued effort in Malaysia to be lenient when probing powerful and
influential politicians. Additionally, weakness in leadership skills,
absence of clear ethical guidance and the absence of severe punitive
measures appears to encourage the commission of corruption.
Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said: “The Government will
never tolerate corruption and will not accept any slackening in the
public sector”. He further stated that “some officers have not lived up
to the high standards which people expect of public servants”.
He added: “Anyone who breaks the rules will be caught and punished.
No cover-ups will be allowed, no matter how senior the officer or how
embarrassing it may be. It’s far better to suffer the embarrassment and
keep the system clean for the long term than to pretend that nothing has
gone wrong and let the rot spread he said”.
Lee Kuan Yew on the other hand had this to say: “We have succeeded in
keeping Singapore clean and corruption free. This requires strong
political will, constant vigilance and relentless efforts by CPIB to
follow up every complaint and every clue of wrong doing. The latest
cases are new forms of corruption, with sex being exchanged for
favourable outcomes. There is no end to human ingenuity”.
According to Shri Prithviraj Charan, Union Minister of State Personal
and Public Grievances, Republic of India, “what is needed is an
effective preventive strategy …”.
This can only be created and achieved here if there were strong
political will and at the moment except for the constant lip service a
tactic employed desperately to garner political support and to enhance
popularity there is no genuine and sincere aggressive steps undertaken.
No transformation process can be successful or would be effective
unless we have a free, open and independent media and the present
political system should continuously be reviewed to provide good
governance.
And radical changes must be welcomed to establish a transparent and
accountable governance in Malaysia. Merely advocating transparent
policies, uniting the people to ensure peace and harmony would not
suffice. This in essence are mere political slogans which do not possess
long term effects.
It must be remembered according to the World Bank studies that
“corruption adversely affects the public sector productivity and
distributive justice and corruption also increases income inequality,
weakens governance and completely reduces citizens trust in
effectiveness of their governance”.
While corruption and corruption related scandals are nothing new in
Malaysia, we as Malaysians must never remain silent nor should condone
such deplorable and shameful practices that ultimately destroys the
social fabric of our civil society.
We must not forget corruption and corrupt practices affects
substantially the security and economy of the nation. Further it affects
the reputation of the country in the eyes of the world.
It is my considered view that more has to be done to curb corruption
in public life and we must always endeavor to establish a corruption
free civil service and political leadership and the need to maintain a
justice system that is incorruptible.
Remember, corruption and corrupt practices are a disease that
seriously affects the peripheral arteries of our democratic process and
unless controlled it is capable of permanently disabling the central
nerves system of our peculiar democracy.
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