Letter to Editor
WE have slide down to a score of 48 (from 51) in the Corruption Perception Index released by Transparency International recently. We have been on the downtrend for the last two years.
This is not surprising as the Government has stalled many reforms initiated back then and we are returning to the 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB) era where corruption is the norm and means of survival.
On the other hand, law enforcement institutions in this country are themselves involved in all sorts of corrupt practices.
I am not going to call this a wake-up call because we have already had so many wake-up calls since the time of 1MDB.
Today we are suffering the consequences of corruption through bad quality of services and products, deprecation of the ringgit, poor healthcare infrastructure, poor education and the list goes on.
So what do we do from here? We surely don’t need to go back to the drawing board to come out with a new plan.
We already have a National Anti-Corruption plan (NACP) that was launched back in 2019. Three years down the road, the implementation of the NACP has been a complete failure.
What we need to do is to implement the NACP fully and truthfully. The question is, does the Government have the political will to carry out the reforms mentioned in the NACP?
The NACP covers a wide range of reforms and strategies, including but not limited to:
- Political financing and governance: The need to govern where and how political parties raise funding. Introducing proper asset declaration law. And to prohibit members of the administration or any highly influential persons from issuing supporting letters for any projects or applications.
- Separation of powers between the Attorney General’s (AG) office and the public prosecutor: Currently there is a conflict of interest when the AG who is a legal advisor to the government also prosecutes. We have seen how some of the previous high-profile cases where the charges were withdrawn or initiated.
- Reforms to government procurement: Mechanism in preventing information leakages, disclosure of conflict of interest and more importantly, to introduce legislation governing public procurement.
- Police accountability: The plan was to transform and convert the Enforcement Agency Integrity Commission (EAIC) into the Independent Police Complaints and Misconduct Commission (IPCMC). The reason for this was to address integrity issues and curb misconducts among the police force. However, the Government has today made a drastic U-turn and instead tabled the watered down and in-effective Independent Police Conduct Commission (IPCC) Bill. This was clearly a political move.
- Independence of the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) and the appointment of the Chief Commissioner: Empowering the agency in terms of the appointment of Chief Commissioner, budget allocations, oversight committee, and the establishment of service commission and manpower.
The NACP also covers areas on corporate governance, legal and judicial reforms, governance of government-linked companies (GLCs) and appointments made in these companies and reforms to law enforcement.
In a nutshell, the NACP is a comprehensive document that aims to cover every possible situation when it comes to corruption and good governance. But why is the implementation stalled?
We don’t hear the Prime Minister talking about the NACP. We don’t hear even our MP’s talking about the NACP. I can also tell that many reading this article today might not have heard about the NACP.
It is time we hold our MP’s and the Government accountable to implement the NACP. Ask and text your MP’s to raise the NACP implementation strategy in Parliament. We need to make sure the NACP is fully implemented if we want to address the huge problem on corruption we are facing today in this country.
We already have a plan, and we must see through its implementation!
Sudhagaran Stanley writes in his personal capacity as an anti-corruption and human rights activist.
The views expressed are solely of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Focus Malaysia.
