MAHATHIR & UMNO: WHAT IS ROOT OF THE EVIL?
23.04.2001
The Prime Minister and President of UMNO Mahathir Mohamad seems poised to take
the devil head on in his bid to rid UMNO of its scourge - money politics and
rampant corruption.
In a speech opening UMNO delegates meeting in his own home division of Kubang
Pasu in Kedah, Mahathir made the stunning proposal that very rich members
would be barred from contesting party posts and branch and division chiefs would
no longer be given government contracts.
To buttress his proposal, Mahathir revealed that from the feedback he received
from a wide spectrum of society in his recent nationwide tour, there was a
consensus that the entire UMNO hierarchy was corrupted and self-seeking, and had
forsaken their duty to race, religion and country. In short, UMNO had lost
the support of the people.
By adopting the above measures to cleanse UMNO of its corrupt image, Mahathir
expressed confidence that UMNO could again attract people to join the party and
regain people's support, without which, Mahathir did not think UMNO could win in
the next General Election.
Though the people of this Country have known for quite sometime that UMNO has
been drowning in a sea of corruption, Mahathir's public cognizance of this fact
nevertheless carries great historical significance.
For the first time, a Prime Minister of this Country admits tacitly that there
has been wide spread favouritism in the award of government contracts to UMNO
leaders; and this conduct is in breach of our corruption laws. Though
Mahathir has not expressly said so, the inference of impropriority is
inescapable. If the award of all these government contracts to UMNO
leaders is above board, why should these activities have sullied UMNO's image,
and why should UMNO have thought it necessary to curtail this practice in order
to save the Party from disrepute? And wouldn't the deprivation of
government contracts to such UMNO leaders be deemed violation of their
constitutional rights, if in fact they have all along been winning government
contracts through fair and transparent tenders? And isn't Mahathir's
proposal (to stop giving contracts to party leaders) tantamount to saying that
it is the UMNO leadership, and not the civil service, that decides on the award
of government contracts, confirming undue political interference in
administrative procedure, which constitute corrupt practices under our laws?
The admission of these widespread corrupt practices brings into focus another
important failure of our Government - our Anti-Corruption Agency is a total
flop, as it has never brought a single case of such corrupt practice to book.
Another negative inference we can draw from Mahathir's statements is that his
thinking is devoid of moral principles. Note that Mahathir's motivation to
stop the corrupt practice is not because he thought such a practice is wrong,
but because he considers it a good strategic move to attract new talents and to
win the next election. Whereas a good prime minister would have ordered a
stop to this corrupt practice in the first instant when it is discovered, simply
because such a practice is morally wrong, and legally in breach of our laws.
The next big question is: will Mahathir succeed in exorcizing UMNO of
corruption, assuming his proposal is fully implemented?
The answer is an emphatic no! Simply because Dr. Mahathir's medicine
treats only the symptoms but not the cause. For a start, what is there to
stop the UMNO leadership from continuing granting illegal government favours to
its agents, nominees and favourite sons, as long as their names do not appear on
the list of party branch and division leaders? And what is there to
prevent UMNO leaders and government employees from taking bribes from the
general public, whose names surely are not in UMNO's exclusion list?
It is obvious that the root of the evil is in the system, not in the people
receiving contracts.
Unless a system of clean and transparent tenders is institutionalized to replace
the present cesspool of corruption and favouritism in the award of
government contracts and privatization projects, rampant corruption and cronyism
will continue to be the order of the day.
To take our deliberation a step further, even if a healthy system of tenders is
in place, will corruption be successfully tackled then? The answer is no
again. This time it is due to the lack of an independent and effective
machine to fight corruption. Our Anti-Corruption Agency, which is
answerable only to the Prime Minister, is generally seen more as a showpiece to
catch small fries and a feared tool to torment political adversary and to
prevent potential political rebellions among the rank and file of the ruling
hierarchy from taking place, rather than a respected institution to combat
corruption. Its numerous and endless failure to act against high
profile scandals of irrefutable corruption and abuse of power has so disgusted
and numbed the general public that not even the least ignorant of observers
could have any illusion of its efficacy.
It has been shown that a truly independent and efficient anti-corruption body is
the answer to the corruption plague. An eminent example is Hong Kong.
Through the establishment of an independent corruption fighting agency
answerable not to the Hong Kong Governor but to the ministry in U.K. in the
seventies, Hong Kong has succeed in transforming itself from one of the most
corrupted society into the top rank of the cleanest governments in the world.
Hong Kong's corruption free administration has been recognized as one of the
most important factors that made its miraculous economic growth possible.
The same can be said of another economic miracle, this time at our doorstep:
Singapore. No body would challenge the statement that Singapore could not
have achieved the miraculous transformation from an economically desolate island
state to one of the world's richest and most admired country in such a short
period, without at the same time keeping the island state squeaky clean from the
taint of corruption. Just for the sake of provoking of our mind, if
Singapore has been as corrupted as Malaysia, do you think Singapore could have
achieved half as much as it has achieved?
In Malaysia, we too have a good formula to raise ourselves from the mire of
corruption. And that is to remake our ACA into a genuinely independent
body answerable not to the Prime Minister but to Parliament, appointed not by
the Executive but by a commission free of political domination, and empowered to
prosecute the highest in the land without undue political interference.
The real issue facing Mahathir and UMNO is: Does UMNO have the political
will to turn a new leaf from its corrupted past? Or is UMNO so ingrained
with corruption that such a thought is mere wishful thinking?
Or, to bring us nearer to home truth, is Mahathir's latest proposal just another
sandiwara (drama)?
Kim Quek