Damaging conjecture

ARCHIVES 2011

By Aurora On May 13, 2011

By Terence Fernandez, The Sun

Information at the end of the day is a valuable commodity, and one should not diminish its value with inaccuracies and vested interests, especially when the words of those disseminating it are deemed as the Gospel truth.

A SLEEPY southern town has been mired in controversy over the last three months. It involves an eatery which has become an institution in this town and the livelihoods of the owners of this eatery and its franchisees, as well as the two-dozen or so staff.

It all stemmed from allegations concerning ingredients in some of its most popular products, which were offensive to people of a particular faith.

The handling of the issue by the authorities leaves a bitter taste in the mouth, where as documents made available to me show, samples were obtained in questionable fashion, departments breached jurisdiction, and worse, they were leaked to the media before any independent verification could be made or official announcement made.

There were several demonstrations following sensational reports in the vernacular dailies and the distribution of leaflets that include the “findings” of lab reports.

Police reports have been lodged and politicians have jumped on the bandwagon, demanding retribution to score brownie points. Business has also dipped with one outlet on the verge of closing.

Ironically this eatery, which started out as a humble canteen at a transportation hub more than 70 years ago, was the focal point of the town and the heart of 1Malaysia for the townsfolk, long before our current prime minister promoted the mantra.

Speaking of the premier, his recent visit to the town was to include a minum kopi session at this eatery but this was struck off the itinerary at the 11th hour. Organisers of his visit felt it would not be right to make the prime minister an unwitting participant in this “controversy”.

While the proprietors were in the midst of “cleansing” their products and their premises, there are now fresh reports – including from the department that stands accused of first leaking the original lab results – that they were probably innocent all the while. Worse, they are just as much victims as some of their customers.

It appears that the offending ingredient was not from within the premises but an inter-nationally recognised brand that – get this – has a certificate of permissibility recognised by this very same department! This was publicly announced by one of the department’s officials at a recent seminar.

On crisis mode, executives of the company have flown in from abroad at an attempt at damage control. And the matter is now in the hands of lawyers.

My intention of bringing up this matter is to illustrate how lives can be wrecked by conjecture. The department in question should have kept a lid on the matter until it had finalised its report and received verification from other agencies such as the Health Department from which the original samples were received. Its officials should have made a proper announcement after pinpointing the source of the offending ingredient.

Now the authorities stand guilty of jumping the gun and affecting the livelihoods of many people and causing anxiety among hundreds of regular clients.

If it had good intentions, it would have immediately alerted the proprietors and advised them to close the premises. It should have made an announcement to warn the public only if the proprietors refused to shut down their business and conduct a ritual cleansing – something which the proprietors had done anyway.

Here it can be argued that bad intentions had a play in this episode that has tarnished reputations through, ironically, lapses in the very agency that is supposed to ensure that products that carry its logo are not contaminated and offensive to the very people it is aimed at assuring.

The proprietors too were using this product for decades believing as their consumers did that it was proper and acceptable. So who’s to blame and who’s going to walk away unscathed?

Although exonerated, the eatery will never be able to win back all the customers it lost. The manufacturer of the ingredient will learn from this episode but being a global player, will also be affected as word gets out.

The agency concerned which shot its mouth off seems to be the only one unaffected by the episode. But that would be a travesty of justice. Hence it is imperative for the powers involved to review the dissemination of information to the masses, especially on sensitive and contentious issues.