One ramadan a couple of nights ago, I had a very interesting “sahur-talk” at a restaurant in town with a couple of friends and one of them happened to be a very senior public servant. The talk centered on the current topsy-turvy baffling Malaysian politics and the uncertainty surrounding the BN led government and on the rising support of the PKR led Anwar. The “sahur table” somewhat became our little speakers’ corner where everyone on the table was exercising their right to be heard. What led me to become more engrossed in the conversation was at the way my senior friend commented that the MPs whether in the Government or in the opposition could if they wanted vote with their conscience when it comes to passing legislation. so at the end of the day he continued to say, it didnt really matter if the Government had a slim or huge majority in parliament as MPs are free to vote with their conscience. Whilst I didnt disagree with what he said, I told him that in any westminster style parliamentary system there is such a person called the party whip whose job it is to ensure that party members toe the party line. Further more, there is also public accountability because in a Government of the people, which was made by and for the people, there is such a thing as party manifesto which is like a moral contract that binds between those who get elected and those who elected the MPs into office in the first place. I told my little audience that If the people elected you into office because of your promise to wipe out corruption then you better make sure you deliver your promises for otherwise people will lose faith in you should you fail to deliver your promise. Or if you promised to cut down taxes in your party manifesto but somehow passed legislation to increase the taxes, you can be sure you wont get reelected come the next election. This is I think the current debacle faced by Pak Lah, his basic failures to deliver what he had promised. But I am not here to write about just Msian politics or the conundrum faced by Pak Lah. I am more interested to the very notion of public accountability in the public service as I am since I took over the new post very much committed to championing this cause. Public accountability is not and cannot just be an illusory principle..
I now know that statistically experts have said that only 2 to 3 % of abuse of power gets reported either in the public or private sector. Abuse of power can include, misuse of funds, fraud, theft, corruption, office pilfering or misuse of office or corporate assets. One report that I read before by a well known accounting firm put it that office pilfering like taking home the office stationaries like pens, papers or even using the office phones for overseas private calls or the photocopy machines to make copies for the exam papers of the employees’ children are very commonplace and actually have put a burden to the operational expenditure (OPEX) of the organisations. This is only the lower end of the scale when it comes to abuse of power. The bigger ones that often are really left unnoticed is the abuse of authority or in the case of public servant the abuse of his public office for personal gain, the most common of which is market collusion where the employee uses his authority by pre-selecting vendors and awarding them to any tenders or procurement contracts done by the organisation. In return the employee takes a commission for every contract award given to his pre-selected vendors. This is blatant corruption to its very core. Many experts have actually estimated that this form of abuse of power can cost between 5 to 10 % of the total cost of the contract award. So, I can only imagine that if the Government were to allocate $1 billion dollars earmarked for the development budget, a figure as high as $100 million dollars can simply be squandered by all the Mister 10 percents! Sadly many see this as an accepted business cost. I once had a conversation with another senior public servant who said that in business, corruption is part of the business costs which are often disguised in many forms such as entertainment or under such heading like consultancy fees. Whilst I am not disputing that that practice does happen, it is not something that we should tolerate. More so if the corruption affects the use of public funds, the costs would somehow be consumed by the Government through inflated contract pricing. The one thing that we need to understand is that whatever “business costs” incurred by the vendor, we can be sure that they will be taken in as a sunken costs should the vendor gets awarded with the contract or tender. So at the end, it is the Government that suffers in terms of the opportunity costs. Just imagine how much the Government can do with the $100 million that is pilfered through corruption or the criminal breach of trust? for a start we can build one school for $5-15 million or a mosque for $5 million. {this is not a complete article..I will complete it after this Hari Raya honeymoon is over..to be continued}
