INADVERTENTLY when I attend social events, someone will highlight a personal encounter where they paid a bribe to solve a problem. “There you go, Idris, corruption is rampant in this country and the reason why we will fail to progress,” they tell me.
When you have been victimised, it is easy to discount the government’s seriousness to fight corruption. The rant on social media reflects people’s frustration on a system they think lacks honesty, integrity and transparency.
Corruption is a beast. It rears its ugly head in the worst and best of us. If we want to be brutally honest with ourselves; many of us have given, received or tempted one way or another in our lifetime.
I first understood the meaning of ‘transparency’ and ‘values’ when growing up in the longhouse. There was always temptation to commit some form of misdemeanour but there were just too many people watching and ready to report on you! You had no other choice but to behave according to the community’s expectation of good values.
To put a big dent on corruption, we must institutionalise good governance and integrity. Ad-hoc solutions heal a symptom but do not cure the disease. The longer-term work is to deliberately destroy entrenched ways that have, along the decades, become the norm of doing business. This is by no means an easy feat and will require the collective will of all – government, corporations and public.
There are three main categories of corruption, namely regulatory/enforcement corruption, procurement corruption and corruption related to political funding. In some areas, we have made progress but there are stumbling blocks:
1. Reducing regulatory corruption
Under the Economic Transformation Programme (ETP), we implemented 196 projects to date and they function as pathfinders to change processes – by streamlining approvals and reducing bureaucracy and consequently minimising opportunities for corruption.
Meanwhile, Pemudah improves the business environment through business process reengineering and automation. When processes can be online and with the least amount of human intervention we will be able to reduce instances for corruption to occur.
The insertion of Corporate Liability provision in the MACC Act will also ensure rigorous monitoring of corruption in the private sector. With the amendments, companies, and not only individuals will be held responsible for corrupt practices within their organisation.
Our continued rise in the World Bank’s Doing Business survey where we came in 6th for 2014, is evidence of this success. In 2010, we were at 23rd position, in 2012 at 18th, 2013 at 8th. In the 2014 survey, we moved up three notches to 16th position in the ‘Starting a Business’ category, whilst we rose 56 notches to be 43rd in ‘Dealing with Construction Permits. These improvements mean that we have been able to drastically reduce the opportunity for corruption.
2. Greater Procurement Transparency
In 2013, Malaysia’s AG office rated the government at 92 per cent in its Procurement Accountability Index. That’s pretty impressive! But it is the eight per cent non-compliance that is getting the attention.
Malaysia is the only country in the world that provides a comprehensive AG report full of exacting details, tabled in Parliament three times a year.
Just recently, a new initiative led by Chief Secretary Tan Sri DrAli Hamsa, was put in motion to get secretary-generals to address inconsistencies highlighted in the AG’s report in a Q&A session with the media. I hope this inquisition-of-sorts, spurs a new era of more prudent procurement practices from the government.
The AG’s online dashboard launched recently to track issues highlighted will also help create a more accountable procurement environment.
There is also the Putrajaya Inquisition. Chaired by the Prime Minister, these sessions are meant to clear backlog cases in the AG Report that have been pending.
3. Political Financing
Surveys show that Grand Corruption, i.e. corruption committed by high-level government officials or individuals who distort the central functioning of the state, can be the most worrying type of corruption. We agree, which is why we proposed that:
– All political financing meant for political parties must be held in party accounts, not individual accounts.
– The immediate issuance of receipts upon receiving contributions to political parties will be mandatory.
– All donations must be properly recorded and accounted in detail according to Generally Accepted Accounting Standards. Party accounts are to be externally audited.
– When donations are collected or held by third parties on behalf of political societies, all funds must be transferred to party accounts within 14 days of collection.
While BarisanNasional has pledged support towards this initiative, the Opposition is still dragging its feet and refusing to commit. I hope they will reconsider.
The prevailing sentiment bandied about is to say that if we are able to plug leakages in the government system there is no need to implement GST and rationalise subsidies. Just solving corruption will in itself solve Malaysia’s finances.
Let’s look at the numbers. A World Bank study (2010) estimated that corruption in Malaysia could cost the government in the vicinity of RM10 billion per year, an amount equivalent to one or two per cent of GDP.
This loss doesn’t in any way offset our debt as our subsidy bill alone is RM40 billion a year. We need to do both – continue with fiscal reforms and tackle corruption at the same time.
Back to Bario. It is about the safest, most honest community you will ever encounter. Its people and lifestyle are as untarnished as its streams and mountains. But Bario also grapples with the real issues of daily poverty.
It would be ideal to correlate growth and wealth with zero corruption. But if economic well-being is solely determined by being rid of this evil, then all the countries in the world should only have one economic theory.
Solutions to prosperity go beyond corruption. Bario is a fine example of that.
(Datuk Seri IdrisJala is CEO of PEMANDU, the Performance Management and Delivery Unit, and Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department. Fair and reasonable comments are most welcome at [email protected])