So Are We Paying 25% More?

The present upheaval over the alleged RM5m farewell parties for the Customs A-G’s retirement shows that Malaysia still has many short-comings or deficiencies in the administration of the civil service.

According to CUEPACS, they are seeking more guidelines on what is allowable for such an occasion. One would have expected that adequate guidelines should have already been formulated for this is not the first A-G to retire after 48 years of independence.

If all this has been a set-up as alleged, then all those involved should be brought to book for it is a shame for such a stigma to be placed on a person after many years of loyal service. If I were the retiring A-G, I would boycott only the functions that are not acceptable to me for it creates a bad precedent for future retirees to have to avoid reasonable farewell functions.

However on tonight’s TV3’s news at midnight, there is mention of RM200,000 total for the farewell functions. This sounds a little extravagant and I wonder if a retiring D-G really needs to travel to all the states to say good-bye prior to retirement. A more prudent budget would involve getting perhaps two or three staff from each state to attend one function in KL. Those selected can be the best employee of the month or other known selection criteria.

A farewell message can always be circulated to all the staff via email, bulletin boards or the department newsletter.

Regarding the battle for corruption in Malaysia, this is a good questionnaire developed by the ADB/OECD Secretariat called the “Anti-corruption Initiative for Asia and the Pacific". It estimates that corruption can increase the costs of all goods procured by 25%. Just review the questions and decide how far or how little we have progressed.

Malaysia has also submitted a self-assessment on provisions and practices to curb corruption in public procurement to the ADB/OECD Secretariat. It all looks very good on paper.

There is another report on stocktaking that claims Malaysia has “freedom of the press” and “meaningful public right of access to appropriate information.” and there is mention of measures to protect whistle-blowers.

Many sections have been left uncompleted so perhaps our measures to eradicate poverty are still works in progress. One further point is that there are many resources like this available to learn from other countries.

It is time we start to take firm action against all corrupted officials.