IS Malaysia hospitable to things illegal is a question that needs asking. News of human trafficking, scams, undocumented foreigners and fake passport syndicates that make regular headlines give the impression that Malaysia "welcomes" them.
Blame it on crooked law enforcement officers for turning undocumented foreigners into a goldmine for themselves and syndicates.
The situation is getting so bad that in March, Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) Deputy Chief Commissioner (Operations) Datuk Seri Ahmad Khusairi Yahaya described it as having reached a chronic and worrying level.
Mind you, this alarm was sounded eight months before the arrest on Tuesday of three Bangladeshis running a fake passport syndicate. Of the three, one had no travel documents. In the first place, how do foreigners like him — an estimate puts the number between one to two million — get into the country? Who let them in? Again, crooked civil servants. Sack 15 or 15,000, they just keep showing up every now and then.
It is time for the civil service to ask itself: how bad is the rot? Chronic and worrying is the answer given by the MACC. Believe it and act now, is our advice. To the MACC, such chronic corruption has made Malaysia a hub for human-trafficking, a drug transit centre in Southeast Asia, a home for scam and fraud syndicates, and a focal point of online gambling operations. Suspension and transfers of crooked officers aren't the answer.
They must be made to pay for their crimes. This isn't just corruption, pure and simple. This is a case of trading the nation's security for fast cars and quick cash. One reason why crookedness keeps rearing its ugly head in the enforcement agencies is the public sector's denial of the corrosive level that corruption has reached. Each time a crooked officer is caught, the public service's excuse for not diving deep is to term the incident as an isolated case.
This is not the one rotten apple of the old adage spoiling the whole barrel. It is a case of a huge number of bad apples. Get rid of them before the whole barrel is filled with rotten apples. Denying reality doesn't make it go away. It will only make it worse. Just like letting the auditor general's reports gather dust. There isn't a year when loss of public funds wasn't highlighted.
The 2022 Auditor General's Report is a story of more than RM700 million in financial losses, wastage and irregular payments. Only the numbers vary, but every year it is a tale of a lack of good governance in the public sector. Even when a public sector service such as the Foreign Workers Centralised Management System (FWCMS) is hived off to be managed by a private vendor, flaws have been highlighted in the latest report.
Not only was the Human Resource Ministry not fully managing it, there wasn't even a signed contract between the government and the vendor for a system that has been used for a year. Haven't we been here before? Yes, every year. And yet, it keeps happening year after year. More like it is caused to happen.
Calls to hold civil servants accountable is getting louder. Somewhere there in the loud voice is ours, too. Immunity from accountability breeds impunity. Crookedness can't be cured or prevented this way.