MALAYSIA is losing an estimated RM55 billion a year to graft, according to Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission chief commissioner Tan Sri Azam Baki. Add this up over the five years from 2018 to 2023, and you get a mind-bending RM277 billion the government had lost to corruption.
And the theatre of the scourge? The country's public service — ministries, government departments, government linked companies and statutory bodies.
Coming as the disclosure does hot on the heels of the government's announcement of a pay hike costing RM10 billion, it must hurt tax-paying Malaysians.
More so when they have been made to pay an additional two per cent in service tax from March 1. The RM3 billion the government is estimated to earn could have come from the RM55 billion lost to graft.
Not that we are questioning the pay hike — the diligent and honest of the one million or so in public service deserve the raise. The time has come for them to help the government in fighting corruption from within by turning whistleblowers.
We are glad the National Anti-Corruption Strategy 2024 to 2028 launched on Tuesday by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim promotes this. But the government must take note that whistleblowing will only work if it is made easy and safe for them to tell on the corrupt.
Squeezing the sleazy is good for the rest of us in the country, too. The government needs to fund its budgets, which is a tale of borrowings and taxes.
This year's national budget of RM393.8 billion is being financed by borrowings, which stand at 64 per cent of the gross domestic product, a percentage point away from the statutory limit imposed by the Development Fund Act 1965.
Sure, it is possible to raise the limit, but at what cost to the nation? And a government in debt needs more. Just how indebted is Malaysia?
This year, our total public debt is expected to reach RM1.26 trillion, a jump from RM1.15 trillion last year. It needs to build hospitals, schools (more than a thousand existing ones are classified as dilapidated), roads and other infrastructure.
It needs to recruit doctors, nurses, health workers and teachers. Not to mention the government's ambition to get the budget deficit down to 4.3 per cent of GDP. All this could have been paid for by the RM277 billion that went to the pockets of the corrupt.
The wrongdoing of sleazy public servants is a costly thing to the government and taxpayers. Malaysians will do well to join the government in its all-of-the-nation combat against corruption.
But the best of the battle against the sleazy civil servants must be fought from within. As pointed out by Malaysia Corruption Watch president Jais Abdul Karim, top officials in ministries and government departments can do a lot to fight graft.
To this list, we add heads of government linked companies and statutory bodies. If all were vigilant to the task, the RM277-billion hole could have been plugged. Plus, such vigilance will stem the leakage and wastage of public funds that the Auditor General Report unearths year in and year out. The rot must stop.