HUMAN trafficking Immigration officers? Yes, we have come to that.
On Friday, Utusan Malaysia's front page story exposed the arrests of 28 Immigration officers involved in helping international syndicates smuggle people from China, Vietnam, Bangladesh and Indonesia into Malaysia through KLIA and klia2 in return for cash, luxury cars, jewellery and land.
This is no breaking news. This story has been told for the longest time. Consider a slice of this aged national agony.
In July, the nation's media was abuzz with the arrest of an assistant director of the Immigration Department in Johor and three of her officers for helping an international syndicate smuggle Indonesian nationals into the country.
Sadly, the Immigration officers weren't the only uniformed personnel arrested. In a July 3 press conference, Johor police chief Commissioner Datuk Ayob Khan Mydin Pitchay told of 14 policemen and five army officers being involved in the scourge.
The Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission's graft statistics from 2014 to 2016 are a telling reminder of how serious this scourge is in the civil service. Of the people arrested for being involved in corruption, 46.3 per cent were civil servants.
With civil servants such as these, Malaysia's civil service needs no enemy. Malaysia, let alone the world, hasn't found the silver bullet to end corruption. But this doesn't mean that we should let it happen.
If we do, we will be the cause and not the cure for corruption. Rather, we must be the reason for its prevention. And prevention must begin with a reimagining of the civil service.
No less than the top civil servant, the chief secretary to the government, should lead the transformation.
Leadership matters. There is something in the way the civil service is organised that allows corruption to seep through the cracks of its structure. It is a "control and culture" thing. If controls fail, corruption will become a culture.
And culture leads to impunity as corruption in the Immigration Department is turning out to be.
Picture this: a low-ranking Grade 19 officer earning between RM1,360 and RM4,052 owning a Rolls-Royce Phantom, a Ford Mustang, a Range Rover and an Audi. If this isn't impunity, what is?
Corruption is best seen as a two-faced demon: giver and taker. There is a myth that if we get rid of the bribe giver, corruption will end.
The fallacy of this is silenced once we hear the frequent laments of the many contractors to the government, who out of fear of losing their contracts, are forced to succumb to the demands for money.
The taker is equally a dangerous devil in the evil equation. Such devils can be kept out of the service if the hiring process is airtight.
Character assessment and background checks are indispensable. The civil service needs to take as much time as is needed to see this process through.
Hurrying to recruit new hires will only make it easy for crooks to get through the cracks.
Character checks may not be able to weed out the corrupt who are already in the civil service, but at least it will keep away those who are so inclined. That in itself is a big bang.