Call on all Malaysians to declare corruption as the Number One enemy of all Malaysians and for all occasions – including the 14th General Election
A joke purportedly about Trump and corruption is making the rounds, viz:
Donald Trump wants the white house painted!
Chinese guy quoted 3 million
European guy
quoted 7 million
Malaysian guy quoted 10 million.
Trump asked Chinese guy how did you quote?
He said:
1 million for paint
1 million for labour
1 million profit.
He asked European?
He said :
3 million for paint
2 million for labour
2 million profit.
He asked Malaysian?
Malaysian said:
4 million for me
3 million for you
3 million will give it to the Chinese guy to paint.
Actually, the joke is not about Trump but about corruption in Malaysia!
I do not find it funny at all, but most mortifying, as it is at Malaysia’s expense.
But is it true, that corruption in Malaysia is so “world-class” as to put other countries to shame?
“4 million for me, 4 million for you” out of a 10 million would put the corruption at 70% of the paint-job, which is phenomenally high.
But for Malaysia, this is nothing extraordinary.
In early October, the country was convulsed by reports of the rampant corruption in the Sabah Water Department, especially the revelation that 60 per cent of the RM3.3 billion earmarked by the federal government to improve water supply to residents, including those in remote areas in the Sabah State, had been “siphoned off” by corruption.
The Director and Deputy Director of the Sabah State Water Department were arrested on Oct. 4 by the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC), together with the confiscation of RM114 million worth of assets and RM53.7 million in “cold cash”, while further investigation revealed a money trail leading to Singapore, Australia and New Zealand.
But Malaysians are mystified why, after a further series of arrest and spate of high-publicity outings by MACC officers, there is suddenly complete silence on the Sabah “watergate” and nobody has been charged in court although it is more than two months after the initial MACC arrests – and after years of MACC investigations before the Oct. 4 action!
The 60% Sabah “Watergate” corruption scandal was not the only scandal to hit Malaysia, as three months earlier, Malaysia netted worldwide infamy and ignominy as a “global kleptocracy” after the US Department of Justice (DOJ) lawsuits under the US Kleptocracy Asset Recovery Initiative (KARI) on July 20 to forfeit US$1 billion 1MDB-linked assets in the United States, United Kingdom and Switzerland arising from over US$3 billion international embezzlement, misappropriation and money-laundering of 1MDB finds.
The investigative and regulatory authorities in over half-a-dozen countries, including closure of banks, imprisonment of former bankers and other criminal prosecutions, have become part of the continuing international reverberations of the 1MDB global kleptocratic scandal – which is however totally denied and ignored in the country.
Malaysia’s global kleptocracy did not happen overnight, but is the result of unchecked rampant corruption in Malaysia, which caused Malaysia to be named by the international website, foreignpolicy.com, as the host country for the world’s third “worst corruption scandal of 2015” at the end of last year; cited by Time Magazine in March this year as the second worst example of current global corruption and in May, rising to number two in the Economist index of crony capitalism, just behind Russia.
In Malaysia, anti-corruption leaders like Pakatan Harapan MPs Tony Pua and Rafizi Ramli, Bersih officials Ambiga Sreenivasan and Maria Chin, and student leaders like Anis Syafiqah Md Yusuf are being persecuted and penalized, causing Anis, the spokesperson of the #TangkapMO1 campaign to raise the valid cry: “Whole world knows we’ve been robbed, why are we still relaxed?”
It is to the eternal shame of Parliament and the UMNO General Assembly they had failed to defend the country’s honour and reputation in failing to rebut and refute the ignominy and infamy of being regarded world-wide as a “global kleptocracy” or to purge and cleanse Malaysia of such international infamy and ignominy.
Parliament and the UMNO General Assembly have failed Malaysians. Malaysians themselves must save Malaysia.
I call on all Malaysians to declare corruption as the Number One enemy of all Malaysians and for all occasions – including the 14th General Election.
The battle lines in the 14GE is “democracy vs kleptocracy” – between those who want to defend the 1MDB global kleptocracy whether directly or indirectly and those who want to restore democracy in Malaysia so that we do not become a kleptocracy, let alone “a global kleptocracy”!
Malaysians should have no truck with political parties or political leaders who are prepared to stomach or tolerate “global kleptocracy” in Malaysia.