Corruption In Malaysia

Introduction

Corruption is the abuse of entrusted power for private gain. It is

damaging to a country because decisions are taken not for the public
benefit but to serve private interests. Corruption undermines good
governance, fundamentally distorts public policy, leads to misallocation
of resources, and particularly hurts the poor. Controlling it is only
possible with the cooperation of a wide range of stakeholders in the
integrity system, including most importantly, the state, civil society, and
the private sector.
 In Malaysia, the prevalence of corruption has been acknowledged
by the Government and various steps have been taken to prevent and
eradicate it. Anti-corruption legislation has been enacted, an Anti-
Corruption Agency established and other administrative mechanisms
like the Public Complaints Bureau set up. Despite these measures
however the incidence of corruption has escalated. The spread of
corruption, incompetence, malpractices, abuse of power, fraud and other
unethical behavior as well as the lack of work motivation, have been
attributed to the decline in integrity among individuals, organizations
and society at large.
When Dato’ Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi became Prime Minister on
31 October 2003, he pledged to eradicate corruption and promote good
governance and ethical values. Since assuming office, the Prime
Minister has launched the National Integrity Plan and the Integrity
Institute of Malaysia as new measures to combat corruption.
These measures appear to be the right choice according to the following
quotation:
“Integrity is one of several paths; it distinguishes itself from the others
because it is the right path, and the only one upon which you will never
get lost.” M. H. McKee
It must be acknowledged that dishonest officials always manage to find
loopholes in the best systems. Bribes may be organized in such a way
that the procedures fixed by law are circumvented. The bottom line
therefore is the integrity of the individual. Each and every person must
exhibit absolute integrity in the exercise of his functions. Even when he
has the opportunity to take a bribe, whether one that is offered or one
which he can ask for easily, he should be so motivated that he will refuse
to do so. Likewise, those who are asked to pay bribes or consider
offering them in order to avoid an inconvenience like a traffic summons
or to obtain a benefit like a procurement contract, should be similarly
motivated to refuse to pay and to act with integrity at all times even if
the inability to secure a contract may mean that his small business will
not prosper. To achieve this, awareness-raising of the consequences of
corruption to the nation, religious education as to the sin involved and
general character building is required. In other words, integrity has to be
inculcated in everyone. People with integrity can be counted on to do the
right thing at all times.
The National Integrity Plan [NIP]
The National Integrity Plan [NIP] emphasizes the preventive approach to
combating corruption by inculcating in individuals and Malaysian
society as a whole, the values of honesty, integrity and ethics. The NIP
has the overall objective of establishing “a fully moral and ethical
society whose citizens are strong in religious and spiritual values and
imbued with the highest ethical standards.”
The NIP will be implemented in five-year stages beginning with 2004 -
2008, named Target 2008. This first phase of the plan, has five priority
targets:
· Effectively reduce corruption, malpractices and abuses of power;
· Increase efficiency in the public service delivery system and
overcome bureaucratic red tape;
· Enhance corporate governance and business ethics;
· Strengthen family institution;
· Improve the quality of life and people’s well-being.
Action plans for implementing the NIP
The implementation and coordination of programmes on integrity for
each component or institution is the responsibility of the agencies
already in place there. In cases where such a mechanism is absent,
efforts will be made to develop one.
An Integrity Agenda has been developed with eight strategies for:
· Family Institution
· Community
· Civil Society
· Socio-Cultural Institutions
· Religious Institutions
· Economic Institutions
· Political Institutions
· Administrative Institutions
The agenda does not target only the public sector which is perceived as
the main perpetrators of corruption but aims to involve all sectors of
society in the integrity programmes. This multi-prong approach is more
likely to see results in the goal to increase integrity in Malaysia thereby
reducing corruption.
The Anti-Corruption Academy
The creation of the Anti-Corruption Academy was announced by the
Prime Minister in December 2003. Believed to be the first of its kind in
Asia Pacific, it is a specialized training academy established by the Anti-
Corruption Agency for the purpose of training anti-corruption officers
from Malaysia and across the region. The Academy will function as a
regional centre for anti-corruption capacity building, promoting best
practices in investigations, monitoring and enforcement, and in newer
areas such as forensic accounting and forensic engineering. Although the
Academy is not yet operational, it has already gained the confidence of
multilateral institutions such as the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and
the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).
The ADB/OECD Anti-Corruption Initiative Steering Committee
meeting in Hanoi in April 2005, comprising anti-corruption agency
heads from 20 countries and representatives from world bodies such as
the World Bank, US AID, Transparency International and Pacific Basin
Consultative Council, agreed that the Academy could make a valuable
contribution to the training of anti-corruption professionals and that a
first regional training course on “Mutual Legal Assistance” will be held
at the Academy. Countries present agreed to send their anti-corruption
officers to the Academy for training. This is seen as a vote of confidence
by the international community for Malaysia’s anti-corruption efforts.
Other preventive measures introduced in the public sector. The second
approach of the government’s preventive strategy to combat corruption
is to close the opportunities for corrupt activities through the
improvement of the public service delivery system. To this end, changes
have been made to existing systems and new mechanisms introduced.

Other Government Initiatives

Royal Commission on Police
The Royal Commission to Enhance the Operation and Management of
the Royal Malaysia Police [RCP] was appointed in February 2004 to
make recommendations “to change the mindset and values of members
of the police force [PDRM] so as to improve their service and to adopt
zero tolerance towards corruption.”

Throughout 2004, the RCP received submissions, complaints and

feedback from civil society groups and individual members of the
public. TI Malaysia submitted a memorandum on 12 August with
recommendations for overcoming corruption in PDRM. The RCP
submitted its report to the King on 29 April 2005 and the report was
made public on 16 May. It is heartening to note from the Report that the
RCP has given serious consideration to the question of corruption in
PDRM and has adopted some of the recommendations of TI Malaysia.
Of the 926 complaints the RCP received from the public between March
2004 and March 2005, 98 were on police corruption. The RCP’s
Inquiries revealed widespread corruption within PDRM. Eight pages of
the Report give examples of the forms that corruption in PDRM take.
These include collecting monthly payments from illegal factory owners
and employers of illegal immigrants; demanding payment for providing
food in the police lock-up to detainees or for allowing them to make a
telephone call; accepting bribes for not acting against people guilty of
committing offences or for detaining and investigating innocent people.
It was also alleged that police personnel gave bribes to senior officers to
get promotions or transfers. The evidence of corruption, say
complainants, is the lavish lifestyle of some officers. One officer is
alleged to have declared assets of RM34 million but no investigation
was carried out to determine how he acquired such a vast fortune.
Influenced also by the finding of a survey it conducted among police
personnel, that corruption awareness is significantly low among
personnel of all levels, the RCP concluded that the elimination of
corruption in PDRM must rank high in the reform agenda.
The RCP identified nine challenges confronting PDRM of which
corruption in PDRM is ranked third. It made 125 recommendations of
which 10 relate specifically to eradicating corruption.
The first of these 10 recommendations is to make eradicating police
corruption one of the top three priorities of PDRM.
The Action Plan that sets out the time-frame for completing the
implementation of all recommendations has fixed June 2005 for this first
step.
All RPC recommendations relating to corruption have been given a short
time to be implemented. For example, the recommendation for PDRM to
launch joint operations with other law enforcement agencies, was to be
implemented by August 2005 while most of the others were given till
December 2005 :
· Adopt a proactive anti-corruption strategy.
· Develop education and training programs to encourage culture of
honesty and integrity.
· Review and strengthen PDRM’s anti-corruption mechanism in the
Disciplinary Division.
· Establish an Audit Management Unit.
· Implement regular job rotations and tenure limitation (as some
departments provide greater opportunities for corruption).

Reducing Corruption in Politics

Political corruption is the abuse of entrusted power by political leaders
for private gain. It can take many forms, ranging from vote buying and
the use of illicit funds to the sale of appointments and the abuse of state
resources.
In Malaysia, in 2004, political parties attempted to address vote-buying
in party elections.
Money Politics
Money politics or vote-buying appears to be rampant in party elections.
Prior to the general assembly in September 2004 of the United Malays
National Organization [UMNO], the Prime Minister’s political party, the
party elections resulted in 160 complaints of Breaches of the UMNO
Code of Ethics. In July 2004 UMNO, held elections for office bearers of
195 divisions, each division corresponding to a parliamentary
constituency in all but the state of Sarawak. These divisional elections
are important as each division will also select seven representatives who,
together with the six office bearers, will be the delegates from the
division to the Annual General Assembly which elects the members of
the Supreme Council. A position in the Supreme Council is the passport
to the Cabinet. It is not surprising therefore to have allegations of money
politics or vote buying in relation to these elections. Between July 2004
and April 2005, 402 complaints were received.

According to a report published by Wall Street Journal, Malaysia is

ranked number one in the world in corruption. According to
Transparency International, Malaysia beat out perennial favorites such
as China, India and yes, even Indonesia for this dubious honor. Wall

Street Journal reports:

Transparency International said Malaysia scored worst in the 2012 Bribe

Payers Survey. It asked about 3,000 executives from 30 countries
whether they had lost a contract in the past year because competitors
paid a bribe—and in Malaysia, 50% said yes. Second on the dubious
honor roll was Mexico, at 48%.
Japan ranked as the world’s least-corrupt place to do business, with just
2% of respondents saying they had lost out due to bribery; Malaysia’s
neighbor Singapore was second-cleanest, at 9%. Even Indonesia, with a
long-standing reputation for corruption, fared better than more-
developed Malaysia: Southeast Asia’s largest economy came in at 47%.
By comparison, 27% of respondents in China said they thought bribes
had cost them business.

This is even surprising for the current Malaysian government, to be

ranked number one, and brings a new meaning to the term “Malaysia
Boleh”. Giving the responsibility to the current government to eradicate
corruption in Malaysia is like saying “harapkan pagar, pagar makan
padi”. The sad part of this is that no one in Malaysia is surprised by the
results of the survey. The world may have thought that corruption
resided in countries like China, India and Indonesia. Hell, we even
though Indonesia was more corrupt. I guess we were wrong.

Malaysia ranked 60th in Corruption Perception Index

PETALING JAYA: Malaysia took 60th spot in the Corruption
Perception Index (CPI) this year, a drop of four places from last year.

The country scored 4.3 on the survey which gauges the perceived level
of public sector corruption among 183 countries.

Malaysia is ranked third among Asean nations behind Singapore (9.3)

and Brunei (6.3).

About two-thirds of the countries surveyed scored below five,

Transparency International-Malaysia (TI-M) secretary-general Josie M.
Fernandez said yesterday.
“Malaysia is among 60% of the countries surveyed who scored below
five,” she said.

Fernandez said the TI-M Corruption Barometer (CB) revealed that close
to half of the 1,000 respondents believed the Malaysian Government was
effective in its efforts to combat corruption.

The enforcement of corruption has increased, Fernandez said.

TI-M has forwarded eight recommendations to the Government,

including amending the Official Secrets Act and enhancing the
independence of the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC).

In an immediate response, the Performance Management and Delivery

Unit (Pemandu) said it is pursuing issues related to corruption very
seriously.

“This will include an entire transformation of the MACC,” Pemandu’s

NKRA & NKEA director D. Ravindran said.

New Zealand took top spot in this year’s rankings with a score of 9.5,
followed by Denmark and Finland (both at 9.4).

Countries with the highest perceived level of corruption are Somalia and
North Korea (1.0) as well as Afghanistan and Myanmar (1.5).

This indicates that Malaysia is not handling corruption as proposed.

Drastic measures need to be taken to recover from this.
Woman Gets Jail For Trying To Bribe TM Officer

A former Alcatel Network (M) Sdn Bhd regional customer account

leader was jailed two years and fined RM125,000 by a Sessions Court
here after she was found guilty of bribing a Telekom Malaysia assistant.
Sessions Court judge Rozilah Salleh ruled that the defence had failed to
establish doubt and ordered Radziah Ani, 51, to be jailed eight months if
she failed to pay the fine. She ordered the sentence to run from
yesterday. “I find her defence was a mere denial, inconsistent and
unreasonable,” she said yesterday. However, the court granted a stay of
the jail sentence pending appeal in the High Court. The fine was allowed
to be paid until March 8. Radziah was found guilty of bribing assistant
manager Mohd Asri Idris, 42, with a RM25,000 bank cheque dated Feb
15, 2006 as payment to supply information about the tender. The charge
sheet stated that the information was “for the supply of Wideband Code
Division Mulitiple Access Mobile Communications System and the
Provision of Works Phase II”. She committed the offence at a hotel in
Jalan Sultan Ismail between 1pm and 2.30pm on Feb 17, 2006.
A total of nine prosecution witnesses and four defence witnesses
testified in the trial. Zulqarnain Hassan from the Malaysian Anti-
Corruption Commission prosecuted while Datuk Seri Muhammad
Shafee Abdullah and Sarah Maalini Abishegam defended.
In mitigation, Muhammad Shafee said his client should not be
prosecuted on grounds that she had denied her involvement.
Health Inspector Faints After Being Found Guilty Of Accepting Bribe
A health inspection assistant officer from the Johor Baru Central
Municipal Council fainted after the Sessions Court here found her guilty
of accepting a RM500 bribe some three years ago.

K. Kalaiselvi, 31, who was standing in the dock , fainted after Judge
Mohd Haldar Abdul Aziz found her guilty. The accused, who has a heart
condition, had to be carried out by a man who was believed to be her
husband. Mohd Haldar adjourned the proceeding for about 10 minutes to
allow her to receive medical attention. When court resumed, Mohd
Haldar sentenced Kalaiselvi to a year’s jail from the date of the
prosecution and fined her RM10,000 in default of six months’ jail. She
paid the fine. Mohd Haldar allowed a stay of execution to allow
Kalaiselvi to appeal against her sentence. Kalaiselvi was charged with
receiving the amount from businessman Lim Chai Lee on Aug 6 in 2010
at around 2.45pm along Jalan Besi 1 at Taman Sri Putri in Skudai as an
inducement not to take action against Lim’s business premises, Seven
Eight Reflexology and Therapy, under Section 107(2) of the Local
Government Act.

That section states that any licence or permit given out is subject to any
additional conditions or restrictions which the local authority thinks fit.
Failure to comply could result in the licence or permit being cancelled
without the need to provide a reason.

Kalaiselvi was charged under Section 17(a) of the Malaysian Anti-

Corruption Commission (MACC) Act, which carries a maximum jail
sentence of 20 years and a fine not less than five times the bribe amount
or RM10,000, or whichever is higher.

MACC prosecution officer Mohd Faizal Sadri prosecuted the case while
lawyer T. Vijaya Sendran represented Kalaiselvi.
Here are 2 examples of corruption cases in Malaysia. These cases are
common and there are many that go unrevealed. The habit of offering
and accepting bribes have become common and practices by citizens of
all statuses and ranks. Bribes range from small amounts such as RM 10-
50 to large ranges exceeding millions.

Malaysian elections: 'There's big corruption, a lot of state abuse'

David Chin disembarks from the Causeway Express bus that links
Singapore to Malaysia’s southernmost state, Johor.

The bellboy from the Royal Plaza Hotel in Orchard is among the 2.5
million young Malaysians preparing to vote in their first election. From
Johor he’s flying to Sabah where he will mark his ballot - alongside all
14 members of his family - for the Opposition People’s Alliance led by
Anwar Ibrahim.

“Malaysia is going bankrupt,” he says, “there’s a big corruption

problem, there are security problems and a lot of government abuse.”

Mr Chin dislikes the government’s race-based policies. His concerns

aren’t uncommon as you walk around Johor, where Chinese voters are
moving away from the government’s National Front coalition in their
droves.

“It’s not a fair education system - it’s no good, our deputy Prime
Minister says education is for Malays first - he says publicly that there is
no building quota for Chinese schools.”
The rocket logo of Mr Anwar’s alliance is heavily outnumbered on the
streets of Johor today, as the nation prepares to head to the polls
tomorrow.

The blue flag of the National Front is everywhere: across rooftops, on

bicycle racks, in shop windows and along every inch of expressways.

But it is fluttering nervously in the wind.

A traditional stronghold for the government coalition, Johor’s

fortifications held firm in 2008 but are creaking in 2013 and Prime
Minister Najib Razak faces the fight of his life to prevent the People’s
Alliance (PR) from wresting it from his control in Sunday’s poll.

Election fever has gripped this state, it’s the talk of the town and no inch
of the roadside is without the friendly face of a local candidate and the
‘X’ for ‘yes’.

Heading west on the Iskandar Coastal Highway, election posters and

flags line the route with hawker (food) centres adorned in blue bunting.

We drive past signs of Johor’s past struggles - a large, run down

shopping centre sits vacated on the side of the road; but Iskandar, an
economic development corridor, has brought growth and investment to
the border town. English universities such as Southampton, Newcastle
and Marlborough College all have campuses in the region now;
Pinewood studios, of James Bond fame, has also taken advantage of
Iskandar’s low tax rates to set up shop in Johor.

Those are signs that the current government has done its job, says Zul
Norin, a local taxi driver. He says he doesn’t trust Anwar “the Rocket
Man” - a reference to the People’s Alliance rocket logo. “He’ll take our
money and fly it to the moon - he’s very clever, he’s a good speaker...
but his morals aren’t good,” he says.

Iskandar nestles in the electorate of Gelang Patah, where the Democratic

Action Party’s Kim Lit Siang, a heavyweight in Malaysian politics and
part of Anwar’s People’s Alliance, will challenge the incumbent Abdul
Ghani Othman in a battle dubbed the “clash of the titans”.

Preparations are undeway for Saturday’s final rally by the opposition in

the town of Kulai, where Johor’s young, mobile phone-armed voters will
flock in their tens of thousands. The stadium-sized rallies have defined
the countdown to election day - huge numbers have turned up to hear
speeches by Opposition candidates: in Penang, north of Kuala Lumpur,
80,000 attended one rally this week. Most of the recruiting is done
through SMS, social media and word of mouth.

“They’re getting all the people together,” says Mr Chin, “to show the
government that they have the numbers and to show the government that
the people are awakening.”

Lee Chaun Hau, a student at the University of Technology in Johor, says

the government doesn’t need to change; he acknowledges that corruption
is a problem but that no government is without corruption. Despite this,
a majority of his friends are set to vote for Mr Anwar on Sunday.

“Most of them want to change this government,” he says, “and if the

new government doesn’t do the job, then they’ll change it back.”

This articles was taken from The Independent. It was posted shortly after
the General Elections held in Malaysia in May. These people from the
internal government have spoken out and given their opinion on this
matter. Although these allegations have not been proven, many are
convinced that they are true.

There have been many talks going on initiated by the government on

stopping corruption and building towards a corruption free nation.
However, the root of corruption in believes to be within the government
itself. Therefore, it is the government themselves that should start by
leading with an example.

As we can all see, many developed countries have low cases when it
comes to corruption. Corruption is a barrier that halts the country from
advancing forward, it only provides personal gain and does not benefit
the country in any way. Countries with high amounts of corruption cases
however are slow in terms of development and often have citizens with
social problems and poverty is also common due to government control.

APRIL 13 ― My objective in writing this is to support Professor Datuk

Dr Woo Wing Thye’s lecture on April 12 at the Syuen Hotel, Ipoh. In
his lecture he listed 5 root causes for our poor performance in
comparison with South Korea and Taiwan.

Woo, possibly because of the election fever, tried to be politically

correct and made little mention of the New Economic Policy role in our
failure to keep up with our neighbours. In fact, it is not only Woo who is
silent on the NEP; most analysts appear to have sidelined this policy in
the election debate to date.
This is a mistake as the real policy culprit explaining our failure to
develop as quickly as our neighbours is the New Economic Policy
(NEP) and the abuse of power in the BN government’s implementation.
As a result, our neighbours are doing much better than us in spite of the
fact that they all did not have the natural resources such as oil and gas.
The culture of corruption in this country is systemic and built into the
policy framework of the NEP. Over the years, this ethnic-based policy
has been abused to benefit only a select group of Bumiputera, although
the policy was originally targeted at helping the larger community of
poorer Bumiputera.
Despite the government’s strong defence of the NEP and its attempt to
demonise those who are critical of it, no less an authoritative source than
the government appointed National Economic Advisory Council has
admitted that although ethnic-based economic policies have worked by
reducing poverty and addressing interethnic economic imbalances, its
“implementation has also increasingly and inadvertently raised the cost
of doing business due to rent-seeking, patronage and often opaque
government procurement,” which “has engendered corruption.”
This analysis is the same as the one that I have been making in my
public writings and speeches. In the profession in whic I have worked
for many years, a system where contractors get jobs because of their
ethnicity will invariably breed a culture of ethnic-based cronyism and
inefficiency.
For example, IJM Corporation Bhd, of which I was a founder, did most
of their highway contracts as sub-contractors to some Bumiputera
Concessionaires. Yet IJM could win a few highways toll concessions on
open competitive tenders in India. It is ironic for IJM, with a market
capitalisation of more than RM7 billion, to work primarily as a sub-
contractor in our own country.
The same applies in the procurement policies of Petronas. Because of
this race-based requirement, contracts and concessions were awarded to
Bumiputeras who do not have the expertise to carry out and complete
the projects. As a result project costs balloon due to the number of layers
of sub-contractors required to complete the job.
The percentage of mark-ups imposed by each layer is, in essence, a
leakage in itself. This has created an underground economy of rent-
seekers, which the government has finally acknowledged. However, it
still refuses to discuss this matter in an open and transparent manner or
seek solutions to it.

Hence, it is not surprising that the culture of corruption has become the
norm rather than the exception. Malaysians are accustomed to the
culture of having to pay a sum of money (or in kind) to complete a
certain transaction, whether in business or in other sectors.

Large-scale corruption as mentioned above is rarely caught by the

authorities. The Malaysian Anti- Corruption Commission (MACC)
prefers to target lower-level corruption and harass opposition members
instead of going after the big fishes who enjoy immunity because of
their political affiliation with the ruling elite.
It is frustrating for many Malaysians that the BN government has not
learnt from the past mistakes and persists in making decisions that bleed
the nation of increasingly scarce resources.
Hopefully the Pakatan Rakyat will do better. For them to get the country
out if its deep hole, they must recognise that the NEP is a crucial road
block in our road map to development that must be redressed
immediately.
We cannot become a fully developed nation by even the 22nd century let
alone 2020 if the NEP remains the main policy framework , corruption
continues on the same scale and if corrupt leaders keep abusing their
powers for self-gain.

* This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not
necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insider.

This article was taken from the Malaysian insider. It enlightens further
on corruption being a barrier towards an advancing country. An
interesting issue mentioned here is the possibility of opposition parties
taking over in the future and having them leading the country.

The Role of the Private Sector in Curbing Corruption

The private sector is perceived as the “giver” of bribes while public

officials are regarded as the “receivers”. However both aspects of
bribery do occur in the private sector. The seriousness of the situation
led to the formulation of the Anti-Bribery Convention in 1999 of the
Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development [OECD] to
control and prevent multinational companies from giving bribes.
Enforcement in signatory countries however has been poor.
In Malaysia, the financial crisis in 1997 led to the setting up of a High
Level Finance committee a year later. Thisled to the formulation of the
Malaysian Code of Corporate Governance [MCCG] in 2000. The code
sets out best practices for corporate governance for companies to apply
to their organizations. Initially the private sector did not heed the
MCCG but this changed in January 2001 when the Malaysian Securities
Exchange Berhad [MSEB] enforced the Revamped Listing
Requirements and implemented the Code. While MSEB does not make
it mandatory for listed companies on the Kuala Lumpur Stock Exchange
[KLSE] to comply with the principles and best practices of MCCG,
these companies are required to be transparent by making disclosures as
required by Listing Requirements. Every company is required to
include in its annual report a statement concerning corporate
governance, to indicate how the principles contained in MCCG are
being applied and how far the code is being observed. In cases where
there is non-compliance with the code, the company must provide an
explanation of alternative practices that they have put in place. In this
way, the companies have to enhance their transparency and
accountability.
In 2002, the Ministry of Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs
introduced a code of business ethics known as Rukuniaga Malaysia
which has been adopted by many companies as a guide for their business
operations. The code outlines six principles for conducting
business:
· Honesty in doing business;
· Responsibility to clients,society and environment;
· Being humane to all;
· Fairnessto clients
· Determination to succeed in business.
In addition, there are the Minority Shareholder Watchdog Group and the
Malaysian Code on Take-overs and Mergers, requiring higherstandards
of disclosure and corporate behaviour from those involved in mergers
and acquisitions.
Other institutions that have produced a Code of Business Ethics are the
Malaysian Institute of Corporate Governance [MICG] and the Business
Ethics Institute of Malaysia which also conducts an ethics programme
for businesses.
A transformation manual that includes strategies aimed at enhancing
corporate governance, developing social leaders and clarifying social
obligations has been launched by the Prime Minister to assist
government linked companies[GLC] to become global champions.
The MICG is in the process of developing a Corporate Governance
Rating to promote good corporate governance in the country. It is
envisaged that when the rating isready, the GLCs will be the first to be
subjected to the rating.

Freedom of the Press

Access to information can result in a deluge of information. What
society needs is a diligent and professional media to sift through the
mass of information on a daily basis and to select with wisdom, matters
of public interest, and convey the information in a fair and responsible
manner. The media however is conflicted by the desire to attract a wide
readership, ample advertising and a healthy profit margin.
Nevertheless, a free media is a powerful counterforce to corruption in
public life. The media has a special role to play in countering corruption
but it can only do this if it is independent. Independence of the media
focuses on the notion that journalists should be free from any form of
interference in the pursuit and practice of their profession. Apart from
the restraints imposed by laws on defamation and sedition, journalists in
Malaysia are controlled by the owners of the newspapers who are
concerned about the law that regulates licencing.
The Printing Presses and Publications Act 1984,Act 301 [PPPA]
The PPPA provides for licensing of presses and publishers annually.
The Minister has the absolute discretion to refuse an application for a
licence, and to revoke or suspend permits that have been granted
indefinitely. His decisions are not subject to judicial review. This Act
has resulted in self-censorship for there is that fear that the newspaper
will have to close down if its licence is revoked. If the media is to
engage in investigative journalism and expose corruption, it must be
free from this threat. The PPPA needs to be reviewed and amended.
An Independent Judiciary like the media, the Judiciary should be
independent. Independence protects the Judiciary from the Executive
and the Legislature. An independent, impartial and informed Judiciary
holds a central place in the realization of a just, honest, open and
accountable government. Judicial independence relates to the institution
– independence is not designed to benefit an individual judge, or even
the judiciary as a body.
It is designed to protect the people.
In Malaysia, issues relating to the Judiciary that affect its independence
is the appointment and promotion of judges. The Federal Constitution
provides for the appointment of judges of the Federal Court, Court of
Appeal and High Courts.
The appointment is made by the Yang di Pertuan Agong, acting on the
advice of the Prime Minister, after consulting the Conference of Rulers.
This process gives the Executive a major say in the selection process and
should be amended to provide for a selection by a Judicial Commission.
The public must be confident that judges are chosen on merit and for
their individual integrity and ability. Likewise, promotion should be
based on outstanding professional competence and not as a reward for
dubious decisions favouring the Executive.

As a conclusion, corruption has been proven to be a huge problem which

is commonly practiced among Malaysian citizens. From a moral
standpoint we should identify this as a disease within our society and do
our very best to stay away from corruption.