THE hurly-burly of arrests and prosecution of dozens of Customs men in recent weeks for corruption has inevitably brought back the old question again: instead of just the receivers, what happened to those scums who gave the bribes?
Will they be charged as well? Corruption thrives in a willing-giver-willing-taker situation and you need to cut the pipeline to eradicate or at least curb the disease.
In this context, the old Malay expressions of makan suap and tumbuk rusuk to denote bribery bring the whole image to the point. Simply put, in a very cozy situation, you will not be able to makan (eat) if there is none to suap (feed) you. And a crippling effect can come out of a person who punches someone else’s ribs (as in tumbuk rusuk).
Even if the two adages are hardly used nowadays, their magic remains as a stern reminder that it takes two to bring about the evils of being corrupt.
The following is an excerpt of a news report recently: “Customs assistant superintendent Mahadir Mohamad, 37, was charged with six counts of receiving RM5,000 in bribes from an individual as an inducement not to inspect a warehouse in the Port Klang Free Zone.
“Kamarul Asmady Ismail, 37, assistant superintendent at the intelligence unit of the Customs headquarters in Putrajaya, faces four counts of accepting RM4,900 in bribes from the same individual.
“Customs assistant superintendent Mohamed Rozlan Ibrahim was charged with two counts of accepting RM1,000 in bribes. Som Chit Tiang, 48, senior assistant director at the Customs special investigation division in Putrajaya, was charged with four counts of accepting bribes, amounting to RM11,000.
“Customs assistant superintendent Sahbandi Abdul Manap @ Asly, 36, was charged with soliciting RM300 in bribes via his cellphone. Jamaludin Zamzam, 54, Senior Assistant Director II of the technical service unit at the Selangor Customs Department, was accused of receiving a RM1,000 bribe, which was placed on the dashboard of his car.
“Two other officers, Amran Ismail and Abdul Rahman Ahmad, both 35, were accused of five and two counts of accepting RM7,500 and RM500 in bribes respectively.
“Assistant superintendent Muhamad Helmi Burhanudin, 37, of the Selangor Customs enforcement unit, was charged with seven counts of accepting RM14,000 in bribes. Wan Azman Wan Ali, 47, Senior Assistant Director II of the warehouse at the Kuala Lumpur Customs Department was charged with five counts of receiving bribes totalling RM10,000.
“Kuala Lumpur Customs director Datuk Mohd Isa Endot, 55, was charged with four counts of accepting bribes, amounting to RM8,000, while assistant superintendent Muhamad Fauzi Kamsar, 33, was accused of three counts of accepting bribes, totalling RM4,200.
“Customs superintendent Shamsul Anwar Mohd, 34, and senior officer Azlee Mohamed Yusof, 48, of the Kuala Lumpur enforcement unit, were jointly charged with accepting a RM3,000 bribe. Jamaludin was accused of receiving a RM1,000 bribe while Mohamed Rozlan was charged with two counts of accepting RM2,200 in bribes.”
Except for Sahbandi who was charged with soliciting RM300, the rest were all brought to court for receiving bribes, two of whom were alleged to have received gratification from the “same individual”. So what happened or what will happen to this individual and all the rest who bribed the other Customs men?
We know quite clearly that offering or giving bribes is an offence under Section 17 (b) of the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Comission Act 2009.
Yet the number of people hauled up for this is far less despite the fact that in most cases they are the initiators in the whole scheme of things.
According to the MACC 2012 annual report, 330 people were arrested in 2012 for receiving bribes while 243 were arrested for giving or offering. Logically there should be more arrested for giving since it is they who generate the transactions.
And what about the attempted cases? Apart from cutting the pipeline, action on the giver could address the general perception that policemen, customs officers, municipal enforcement men and other civil servants are corrupt. Many would like to think that businessmen who give are not. They think that motorists who minta selesai after being stopped by a traffic policeman are not.
The worst of the lot are the people who give bribes but feign innocence and go on to denounce the system. Hence the disparaging remarks made by some about the country being corrupt, not realising that they themselves encourage and contribute to the scourge.