KUALA LUMPUR: The Sultan of Perak Sultan Nazrin Muizzuddin Shah has urged Malaysians to work collectively in order to build a high-trust society on matters concerning ethics and integrity in business and government.
"When trust is low, everyone acts selfishly and believes everyone else will do the same. This results in high transaction costs because people feel they need to have protection to cover any eventuality.
"To build trust, I believe we must strive to address comprehensively the divisions that exist in society and which seem to be growing wider over time. These include the familiar ethnic, religious and territorial divisions but also divisions in social class and ideology," he said in his speech during the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Foundation's International Conference 2015 today.
Present were the foundation's president Tunku Abdul Aziz, former Inspector General of police Tun Hanif Omar and former president of the Malaysian Bar Council, Datuk Param Cumaraswamy.
The event was aimed at raising awareness of the debilitating efforts of corruption on Malaysian society and address these concerns with a view to offering sustainable practical solutions to unethical governance.
The Sultan also stressed that Malaysians must take personal responsibility for matters concerning ethics and integrity, and they (Malaysians) could not afford to 'outsource' these matters to educational institutions, peer groups, employers and even the government.
"The family unit is critical in these efforts. When the foundations built in the home are not strong, then there is very little that outside institutions can do," the Sultan said.
Citing an example, the Sultan said that in Japan, families takes the primary role in instilling core values in children from a very young age, and these values of 'omaiyari' or empathy towards the feeling of others, helps children recognise that they are part of an independent group, and they must respect, be kind, helpful towards other members of the group.
"It is essential that there be a very strong degree of coherence, congruence and correspondence in term of ethical practices in the home, school, workplace and larger society. Any evidence of double standards, particularly among those in positions of power will send mixed messages and undo the good work that has been done elsewhere.
"Besides that, there have to be in place both legal and social sanctions against those who seek to 'game' the system, so to speak, such as those exploiting weaknesses to take personal advantage of the situations they find themselves in. There has to be a sincere demonstration of zero-tolerance of unethical decisions or actions, especially by those holding high public office," he said.
The Sultan added that ethical behavior tends to flourish in a society that was openly democratic and transparent, that was not to say that openness, democracy and transparency could guarantee that ethical acts would follow naturally.