MALAYSIA has a good-governance dream. But some of its civil servants are turning it into a national nightmare. As this Leader goes to press, bribery is national bad news.
Yes, again. On Sunday, the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission said it had summoned five Sabah assemblymen for questioning over corruption allegations involving the procurement of mineral projects. When lawmakers become lawbreakers, then we are in serious trouble.
Go north, south, east or west, the fetid air of foul money is there. Sometimes this is a dirty-red story, the colour of illegally mined bauxite. Bauxite, the red earth that is the primary source of aluminium, isn't the problem. Bribery is. Put bauxite and bribery together and you have an explosive national disaster in your hands.
The environment goes a terrible red and so does the government coffers. That was what happened in Pahang in 2016, when unregulated bauxite miners turned village homes, roads and rivers dirty red.
Even Kuantan Port was bloody red because corrupt Customs officers were letting the illegal bauxite to be warehoused there for export to China. If not for protests of the villagers and environmental activists, more of Pahang would have turned bauxite red.
A ban and moratorium followed, but one question remains: how were the bauxite miners permitted to carry on unregulated for so long? The red gashes left in the hills demand an explanation.
Many don't think of corruption as a national security issue, but it is. Remember the case of our Immigration officers letting in foreigners with fake papers? All for the sake of a stash of cash.
There are things money shouldn't be able to buy. National borders are certainly among them. Our civil servants mustn't be allowed to go this low. But let's stick with bauxite.
Given Putrajaya's anti-corruption drive, it should be very hard to find civil servants who are on the take. But as the 2022 case of a Chinese national-turned-bauxite-miner in Kedah proves, 'hard' isn't very hard at all.
All you have to do is entice the greedy. Yes, there are a fair number of officers in the civil service who want to get into Jimmy Choo shoes and drive away in Maseratis. Sometimes the law catches up with the corrupt civil servants living a life of sponsored luxury, but most of the time it doesn't.
Perhaps the time has come for us to take a leaf from Britain, where the Unexplained Wealth Orders enable the government to confiscate assets amassed illegally by civil servants. Obviously, this requires just execution.
The Chinese national was caught and was slapped with a whopping RM630,000 compound. After paying the compound, he disappeared. So did the story of who brought him to Kedah and which civil servants allowed him to illegally mine bauxite. It is lack of transparency such as this that encourages corrupt behaviour.
The latest illegal bauxite mining case — again in Pahang — involves a Datuk Seri, we are told by the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission. Call it the "titled" becoming entitled. Greed is not only a disease among some in the civil service; it is a growing ailment of men of commerce.
For every taker of bribes, there is a giver. Both must be dealt with punishingly. Otherwise, Malaysia's good-governance dream will become a nightmare.