Rampant corruption in the government. What can be done to stop this?

Today, the Malaysian Anti Corruption Commission (MACC) celebrates its 53rd anniversary with a remark from the chief commissioner Datuk Seri Azam Baki that corruption with in the government has been getting rampant today despite all its efforts to combat the corrupt practices nationwide.

Yes, MACC has been initiating all its efforts to go all out to get rid of such negative element from the public sector ever since, such as education, training, awareness and all other sorts of programs in order to educate and make civil servants aware of the circumstances, penalties, fines and blacklisting.

However, none of these efforts are seem to be effective despite going all out. Instead, more and more civil servants are making such practice as the way of earning some lucrative incomes in order to finance their inflated and luxurious expenditures. First of all, why do these civil servants continuing their corrupt practice and worst of all, even many newly recruited civil servants had went into the curve to learn how to get corrupted instead of enhancing one's productivity?

Are all these due to culture, a very normal kind of practice that these civil servants has been practicing for decades, generations to generations, creating and enhancing connections and many more? Despite MACC having going round the clock nationwide to educate and make aware to these civil servants on the dangers and how bad is it being a corrupt official, but still corruption is rampant in the government sector till today and it is also becoming worst as years goes by.

Many corrupt government officials got investigated, caught, arrested, charged in the court, sentenced to imprisonment for many years, yet more and more government officials are going into corrupt practices and no one in MACC knows exactly why is it happening despite all their efforts. These MACC officials and their team seems to be frustrated.

We had observed one notable senior politician from the previous ruling party who is now attach to the current ruling coalition today, who once said this, "We hired you to combat corruption, arrest this guys and put them in jail. That is why you are here today and do not complain or show your frustration. Just do your job and that's it!".

From this comment uttered by the senior politician, what can you conclude on the way this so-called "Yang Berhormat", when he told off the then MACC official?

It means combating corruptions a strong political will to do it. It must start from the top, those who are sitting up there, the prime minister, the cabinet ministers, members of parliament, chief ministers, menteris besar, state executive councillors, state legislative assemblymen, city mayors and presidents of municipal and district councils, government chief secretary, ministries secretary-general, directors-general, divisional heads, department heads right down to the bottom.

The stumbling block to the efforts to combat corruption today lies on the Prime Minister's Department who has been for decades fully controls the many kinds of agencies as well as the parliament. Even the Speaker of Dewan Rakyat and the President of Dewan Negara are both reporting to the Minister in the PM's Department (incharge of law and parliamentary affairs).

The first thing here is the country's highest law making institution is not even an independent body itself to effectively play its role in check and balance on the current sitting government in its regular proceedings, transactions, policy implementations, projects, tenders, procurements, budgetary expenditures and so on.

So, until today, why is the parliament still under the jurisdiction of the Prime Minister's Department? If such continues, then the Dewan Rakyat Speaker and the Dewan Negara President will forever have no freedom to exercise their powers and roles in order to ensure members of parliament carry out its checks on the government in a most effective way as it was supposed to be.

Just look at all those parliamentary special select committees which were appointed by the previous Speaker to oversee the portfolios of various ministries which are Special Select Committee For Consideration Of Bills; Special Select Committee On Budget; Special Select Committee On Defence And Home Affairs; Special Select Committee On Gender Equality And Family Development; Special Select Committee On States And Federal Relations; Special Select Committee On Major Public Appointments; Special Select Committee On Election; Special Select Committee On Human Rights And Constitutional Affairs; Special Select Committee On International Relations And Trade; Special Select Committee On Science, Innovation And Environment and of course the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) as well.

So, why are all these parliamentary select committees not on their oversight roles and responsibilities? It is because the Dewan Rakyat Speaker needs to authorise these select committees and empower them to carry out their check and balance role. In doing so, the Speaker needs to obtain the permission or approval from the Minister in the PM's Department before he could issue the authorisation.

From here, it clearly shows that the parliament itself is not an independent institution where it was supposed to be because the administration and management of the parliament comes right under the jurisdiction of the Prime Minister's Department.

For your information, the Malaysian Parliament was once an independent institution governed under the Parliamentary Services Act 1963, the Act was then abolished in 1992 in order to revert the control of the institution to the Prime Minister's Department.

Asides, the MACC itself is also under the jurisdiction of the Prime Minister's Department where the appointment of the MACC chief commissioner has always being determined by the Prime Minister himself, no doubt, in name, the appointment was "ceremoniously made by" the Yang Dipertuan Agong after the Prime Minister approves the candidate first. Then, is MACC really independent?

So, what can be done to stop all these rampant corruption in the government? The answer is, Nothing can be done unless there is a clear set of political will by the sitting government to change and reform the parliamentary and state legislature system and separate them all out from the jurisdictions of the Prime Minister's Department and the various Menteris Besar/Chief ministers' Department of the states (for your information, the State Legislature Assemblies are also currently controlled by the respective Menteris Besar/Chief Minsters' Department).

If all such reforms are being carried out from federal to state levels, all legislative bodies become independent from that of the executives, only then these legislatures (parliament and state legislative assemblies) are able to carry out their check and balance roles on to the sitting governments. This is the fact.

Therefore, if the government of the day is not interested at all to carry out the above reforms and to make the legislature system independent from the executive control, then, corruption will become even the most rampant in the gvoernment. In other words, Malaysian civil service stands a chance to become a champion in the Asian Corruption Index, probably they will qualify for the World Corruption Index in the next couple of years.

Then, as for the MACC chief commissioner and his senior officials, if you all want to complain and demonstrate your frustration over the rampant (and increase) corruption in this country, put it first all those top politicians up there, instead of voicing it to the press or the public. The people will just say, you are powerless and ineffective.

Well, that is how this Malaysian government works today, "culturally and traditionally" since the 50s.  

Happiest 53rd Anniversary, MACC!