Business as usual tomorrow?
By R. Nadeswaran, The Sun
TOMORROW is “World Anti-Corruption Day”. There’s little to celebrate but plenty to commemorate. Like “World Press Freedom Day”, there will be seminars, talks and activities to mark it, but just a few hours later, it’s back to business. After all is said about the evils of corruption by moral guardians and legal enforcers of the law, there would be no halt to the long list of abuses, the lawatan sambil belajar and the study trips by politicians to watch belly dancers in Egypt would continue; the all-expenses paid trip by the taxpayer for the family to some exotic island Disneyland will take its course; and the looting of government coffers will not cease.
On the international front, the Kenyan government is said to be losing nearly one-third of the national budget to corruption. The scandal of the Pakistani cricketers accepting money from bookmakers is still reverberating around the sports world. Allegations of corruption within the governing body of football, FIFA, have put other more pressing issues of WikiLeaks and backhanders and bungs(an unauthorised and undisclosed payment to a club manager) by leaders and dictators in the back-burner. Another expose in Thursday’s newspapers would be a perfect gift for the English fans and a vindication of press freedom and the fight against corruption.
Almost daily, some newspaper or news portal publishes a string of wrongdoings, sometimes with documents to substantiate the claims. But these claims are treated with disdain and the lack of attention it receives reflects the level of tolerance we have for big-named wrongdoers.
On the home front, this year is no different. There’s nothing to celebrate. Even the indictment of former Selangor mentri besar Datuk Seri Mohd Khir Toyo for land fraud on Monday reflects little of our anti-graft efforts. But, there will be no euphoria of sorts when Malaysians mark “World Anti-Corruption Day”. While it may have been coincidence, commentators are quick to point out that the prosecution is perhaps exposing the country’s worst-kept secret. It may be a forbearer of what the government has promised but have we not seen it before? A handful of prosecutions do not mean that the war on graft is on. On the contrary, it makes people believe that something is being done. Let it be at the outset be said that although the court of public opinion may have convicted Mohd Khir, but under the law, he is innocent until he is proven guilty.
Attorney-General Tan Sri Abdul Gani Patail wants an early trial date. Well done Sir, but shouldn’t justice be dispensed equally fast in other cases involving people’s money like the Port Klang Free Zone scandal? And more importantly, most right-thinking Malaysians would agree with him when he said: “Being in high office does not mean different rules apply, in fact (they) should be more accountable.”
Hooray for the phrase “everyone is equal in the eyes of the law”! But it is difficult to interpret and decipher what he said at his press conference after the Umno stalwart was charged. “We will be applying ‘the full force of the law’ so that witnesses are fully protected. This is one of our attempts to make sure there is no interference of any kind in this case.” Is he insinuating that there had been previous attempts to interfere or that “the full force of the law” had not been previously used? When Terence Fernandez and I interviewed Gani a year ago, he took great pains to explain the intricacies of getting a conviction, the problems faced by prosecutors in the courts of law and key witnesses changing their stories midway through trials. Are we to assume that there would be no opportunity for some witnesses to turn the tables? Are we to believe some of them will be accorded personal protection for their own safety? Please don’t get me wrong. It is the first time a public prosecutor has come out openly and made such statements which I find a bit strange.
Having said that, let’s give the much-maligned Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission the credit it richly deserves. Its chief, Datuk Abu Kassim, has been on the receiving end (most of the time for the wrong reasons) and the culmination of two years of work will be for all to see when the trial starts. Collating information and interviewing witnesses took more time than expected, but the consolation is that Gani says that the prosecution’s case is not based on flimsy evidence. If time is needed to carry out investigations, then let it be. It is good this has happened although it should have happened sooner.
