Vox Populi–Letter: Anti-corruption plan commendable but implementation is key

THE National Anti-Corruption Plan (2019-2023) is highly commendable. The government and all those who formulated this comprehensive plan deserve our appreciation.

But can we achieve a corruption free Malaysia by 2023.

The latest Transparency International Corruption Perception Index (CPI) showed very slight improvement for last year. We moved from 62nd place to 61st out of 180 countries from 2017 to 2018. But our score remained at 47 points out of 100 in 2017 and 2018.

It indicates that Malaysia’s CPI will improve only when the results of all our efforts to fight corruption and bring to book the corrupt leaders bear fruit.

Some reasons for bad corruption culture

1. Developing from a feudal society, we often carried on with the tradition of rewarding those who provided good service.

2. Many perceive that corruption is acceptable as it contributes to improving the distribution of income.

3. However grand corruption occurs mainly in the arena of money politics. The NACP has proposals to control money politics and to set limits on political funding. It will set these limits in two years. I am sure it can be done sooner and there are precedents on fixing such limits.

We could set some criteria for the essential campaign costs that don’t include bribes for votes. It’s not difficult to take into account the cost of banners, pamphlet’s and transport and travelling cost of the candidate.

4. There is a tendency to have fewer checks and balances when the public service is more mono-racial. The NACP should push for a more multiracial public service to encourage competition and achieve its aim.

5. Most importantly, leaders and secretaries-general and heads of department must set the best examples.

What more could the NACP do?

1. The NACP has to work closely with government to raise efficiency and reduce red tape. If the efficiency is improved, I believe the opportunities to demand and pay bribes will be reduced considerably

2. The NACP should seek to reduce the size of government. Find ways of downsizing and allowing the private sector to undertake some services.

Basic needs like education, health and housing could be provided with priority to the poor in the B40 group. The rich could be encouraged to pay more for these services or go to the business sector. This would reduce the burden on the government and reduce its size.

3. All religious leaders could do more to preach more fervently against corruption. If the fear of committing corruption is ingrained in all places of worship resolutely, it will do a lot of good.

4. The NACP should adopt the principle of presumption of guilt until proven innocent of corruption.

5. The NACP has to ensure there are trusted monitoring systems and provide the public with half yearly reports to show the progress made.

Tan Sri Ramon Navaratnam

Chairman

Asli Centre for Public Policy Studies