12
speak up!
“
You had advocated good
governance, more openness
and accountability by
government departments and civil
servants. You even went to the
extent of making it policy to call
open tenders for all government
contracts. To drive home the point,
you cajoled the civil servants,
encouraged them and even went
to the ground to government
departments to see for yourself
what was happening. You talked
to the rakyat at the immigration
office and you made it very clear
that service to the people must be
paramount.
As a result of your
pronouncements, some of your
colleagues in the cabinet got their
chief secretaries to set up task
forces and special committees to
“study the system” with a view to
improve services. Sorry, to say Sir,
after more than two years, nothing
has changed except for some
smart sloganeering. The messages
in television commercials, radio
and press advertisements give the
impression that we have taken
giant strides, but sad to say, we
have not moved forward much.
On the contrary, some government
departments have taken several
steps backwards. Some have
become dictatorial, others have
adopted a “what can you do”
attitude and your message seems to
have fallen on deaf ears.”
THE above words were penned
in this column on March 28, 2006
He’s all ears, but who else is listening?
in an open letter to
Prime Minister Datuk
Seri Abdullah Ahmad
Badawi. It has been two
years and eight months
since, but over lunch
when we were asked
to be candid, we were
given an opportunity to
repeat the comments
and questions that were
penned to the country’s CitizenNades differently. While I may
chief executive officer,
who began his term in by R. Nadeswaran
2004 with a bang – a
promise to fight corruption, to
improve the delivery system and
to be more open.
Why didn’t his “first class
mentality” programme on the
delivery service materialise? Was
it the civil servants who felt their
large nest-eggs were about to be
destroyed? Who put spokes in
his wheels of reform in the area
of the public delivery system?
What went wrong? A month
after he took office, he visited the
Immigration Department and
almost immediately, there was a
transformation of sorts.
“When you went there, we had
expected members of your cabinet
to do the same by making surprise
visits to departments and agencies
under their purview,
but they were busier
setting up committees
and task forces,” we
remarked.
Instead of spewing
venom at the people
who let him down,
the soft side to him
emerged. “Some
people tackle issues
want to see immediate
results, others may
want to take their time
in doing things.”
But we have achieved in many
areas, he said. “The Immigration
Department is an example.
Passports can be issued in a day
and renewed in an hour.” That’s
only one department, what about
the others?
At length he spoke on the need
for the government to serve the
people, the need for sensitivities
to be remembered and the need
for integrity. “When you talk
about corruption, it’s not just the
government servants. So much
corruption exists in the private
sector,” the prime minister said.
But what was foremost on his
mind was his commitment to
reform and his compulsion to
theSun
have all these achieved before he
leaves office in March next year.
But the public delivery
system was not the only issue he
wanted to discuss with Terence
Fernandez and I when he
invited us to his Jalan Bellamy
residence last Tuesday. He
talked passionately about the
National Integrity Institute, the
Malaysian Commission on Anti-
Corruption Bill, the judiciary, the
Independent Police Complaints
and Misconduct Commission and
an array of subjects, including
conduct and qualifications of
politicians and public perception.
The institute is ideal for civil
servants to attend kursus, collect
their allowances and get back to
what they were doing before. But
when there’s no integrity in their
hearts and conscience, no amount
of teaching and prodding is going
to change. Would the head of a
Selangor government company
change her mind about buying a
RM159,000 watch for her political
master if she had attended a
course at the institute? Would a
similar course have affected the
spending habits of a minister
who spends millions of taxpayers’
money on projects that bring no
benefits to the people? Never, but
| MONDAY DECEMBER 1 2008
had these people feared the long
arm of the law, such thoughts
would have never crossed their
minds.
The people must know, he
said, that when they have a
grievance, the system allows their
case to be judged fairly and by
the fact before them and hence a
need for an independent judiciary.
Therefore, any fears that his
reform agenda would be rail-
roaded by the Opposition should
be dismissed. While the general
perception is that the “opposition
will oppose anything for the
sole purpose of opposing the
government”, in this instance, it
should only be considered a myth.
How would Lim Kit Siang, Abdul
Hadi Awang and Anwar Ibrahim
go back to their constituents and
explain their failure to support
something that is good for the
rakyat?
But while these reforms will
be welcomed by every right-
thinking Malaysian, what about
the Attorney General’s Chambers?
Since the AG is also the public
prosecutor, he has to sanction all
prosecutions and if and should
he play ball, the case won’t even
come before the courts, however
independent they are.