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| Malaysian Top brass - corporate, civil service and politician |
For years we in Malaysia
have closed an eye to the things which are not done right. We have become a nation which celebrates
mediocrity. The proverbial “tak pe la”
has become a mainstay in much of what we do and expect from the government of
the day. We have become calloused in our
conscience, our tolerance for corruption and bribery is very high and our
attitude towards excellence and productivity is poor to say the least. This national tolerance for “what is not
right” in Malaysia has led to an inefficiency in our government agencies, and breakdown of security and safety. We can see this from the management of MH370 and the many fatal bus accidents and the kidnapping case in Sabah.
We have allowed a murder
on our soil with no closure. The lack of will to find the culprits of a
brutally murdered foreign woman linked to the politically elite is a serious
lapse of justice. The 2 officers had no
motive whatsoever to murder except to carry out the work as henchmen. The fact that we as a nation have allowed the
innocent blood of a woman to spill on our soil without bringing the plotters to
justice is a dark blotch on the history of our country. Then
there is Teoh Beng Hock who died in the hands of the MACC. How about Ahmad Sarbani, the custom
officer? How about Aminulrashyid and the
many deaths in police custody? These
are all a dark stain on our country’s conscience.
We have also become so
tolerant of corruption and bribery in all forms and levels. We make light of it and we laugh at ourselves
because we have become a people who would pay to get out of a speeding ticket
then pay to speed up licensing, pay to speed up government approvals for
starting a business. We have lost
billions to mismanagement and corruption in government projects and yet we are
able to gloss over it without anyone being charged or fired. Each year the Auditor General’s report gives
damning evidence of corruption in government procurement and sourcing yet no
heads roll. We learn to cope with it and
many times play along this broken system in order to get things done. It’s a sad state of affairs.
With this tolerance of
corruption we obviously begin to close an eye to excellence. Busses speed along the highway with no fear
of getting caught. Lorries and busses
pass their annual inspection without even trully meeting standards. How long have we made fun of the “kopi O
license” where drivers are given license even when they are not competent. Pedestrian walks are full of construction
debris or ends in a pile of dirt because no one had the sense of excellence to
repair them properly. I can go on and on
but in short we have become a nation that celebrates mediocrity. We fool ourselves by saying we have a world
class education system when our children rank lower than Vietnamese children in
PISA education tests. We came out bottom third in ranking. We fool ourselves when our children come out
with 10A’s or 12 A’s but many will struggle to make it through a UK tertiary
institution.
The crisis which
unfortunately hit our nation on March 8th (and I am not talking
about the political Tsunami) brought forth our top uniformed men and civil
servants to the international scene.
They struggled to explain competently issues which they were supposed to
be experts in. They struggled in
articulating their thoughts professionally and to make matters worse they did
not have a good command of the English language. They showed a weakness in
protecting our airspace and reveal a lapse in security on the morning of March 8th. This I believe
would not have happened to our professional senior civil servants 30 years ago.
Much is not well with our
country and I think many have now come to the same conclusion. We continue to play racial politics to our own
detriment. We denounce meritocracy and tolerate mediocrity to our end. If we
continue to turn a blind eye to corruption and injustice who knows what else we
will lose. We can play a part by keeping our Prime Minister, MPs, ADUN's accountable for what they say and do, refusing to pay a bribe and insisting on doing thisngs well. Then only can we begin to lift our nation back into productivity and resolve the many outsanding issues in our government.
