Have they, not just politicians, civil servants no shame?

 With billions being spent on Budget 2025, it is important that the money reaches the people, and is not siphoned off by the corrupt and kept in ‘safe houses’. Good must triumph.

Dorairaj Nadason

I HAVE always loved spy stories. You know, the type where the hero kicks some serious butt and takes out the bad guys before rescuing the pretty scientist they are holding hostage.

The pretty hostage and the spy make their way to a safe house where she is debriefed and secrets are revealed. Then the hero and scientist go to some island in the sun where the hero “de-briefs” the scientist in another way. But hold on, I am going off on a tangent.

What I am really on about is that I have always thought of a safe house as a place where hostages and intended victims of killers are taken to stay safe.

Or places where kids bullied and mistreated by some cult are taken to be kept safe from the bullies, or parents who handed them over to the culprits.

In Malaysia, we have more. Here, we have safe houses that are literally houses that double up as safes.

The Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) people raided a few houses belonging to a politician recently. They were “safe houses” holding close to RM5.5mil, both in local and foreign currencies.

Why would a person stash so much money away in a house and not put it in a bank account? Was it some ill-gotten gain? Or was it money to be used on the sly for some other reason?

First things first, though. We have not been told who the politician is and he is obviously innocent until proven guilty, and we do not know if there is more to these raids and seizures than meets the eye.

But one thing is certain. Corruption among politicians has for long been a big thing in Malaysia. And almost none would accept their guilt.

Scores of them – from both sides of the divide – have been charged and most of us believe that it is only the tip of the iceberg.

It’s not just politicians. Civil servants have also been caught with houses serving as safes.

Just last month, nearly RM800,000 in cash was found in the bedrooms of two Immigration Department officers who were caught for “counter setting”.

One of them had close to RM250,000 hidden under a mattress. Apparently, people still do keep money under mattresses and pillows. My late mother used to do that, but a quarter of a million?

MACC folk have seized more than RM1.5mil in their raids against dirty Immigration officers, according to chief commissioner Tan Sri Azam Baki.

And who can forget the Sabah water scandal, where two senior officers in the state agency were arrested? Some RM52mil in cash was seized, RM3mil of which was in a safe deposit box in a suspect’s office with more in a “safe house”. There were also jewellery, luxury watches, cars and even land grants.

Here are some statistics, as given by MACC’s director of monitoring and coordination Mohamad Tarmize Abdul Manaf:

From 2019 to 2023, 2,163 public servants were arrested for corruption. This was 43.3% – almost half – of total arrests made by the commission. Of that number, 1,347 (62.2%) were arrested for soliciting and receiving bribes.

Oddly enough, 21 (1%) were arrested for offering and giving bribes.

Tarmize says there are many reasons why public servants should not take bribes. There’s the shame of being arrested, jail terms that can be as long as 20 years, and there are huge fines of up to five times the value of the bribe.

They can even be named and shamed in the MACC portal. Worse, civil servants will not only lose their jobs but also their pensions.

So why do they still do it?

Does the lure of extra money really overshadow the punishments they potentially face? Or are they paid so little that they need to find extra funds to survive? In just over a couple of months, civil servants will get a hefty pay hike. Will that bring down corruption?

I am not sure, but most would agree that corruption is a serious matter in Malaysia.

In 2023, we ranked 57th out of 180 countries in the Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index with a score of 50, up from 47. A year earlier, we were ranked 61st.

There has been an improvement, but obviously, we have a long way to go.

Take our southern neighbour. In the same index, Singapore was ranked the fifth least corrupt country and remains the only Asian country ranked in the top 10. Even its politicians would not dare to be dishonest.

Earlier this month, S. Iswaran, a senior Cabinet minister in the republic’s government, was sentenced to 12 months in jail.

His offence? He accepted gifts worth more than S$403,000 (RM1.32mil) while in public office. The gifts included tickets to the Formula 1 Grand Prix, a Brompton T-line bicycle, alcohol, and a ride on a private jet. There were no huge sums of cash hidden in his house.

It probably would not have been a big deal in Malaysia.

And Iswaran’s response to the verdict? The 62-year-old accepted that he was wrong to accept the gifts, declined to appeal, and went to jail.

There is a sense of shame there. Former Singaporean national development minister Teh Cheang Wan who was investigated in 1986 for accepting bribes even took his own life before he was charged.

Malaysia really needs honest politicians, or at least those who know the difference between right and wrong. Yesterday, a RM421bil Budget was unveiled. It must reach the people, not be siphoned off by corrupt officials.

We will also be celebrating Deepavali in 10 days, and it is a good time to reflect on the integrity of our leaders. After all, Deepavali is also about the punishment of thieves and the corrupt.

The evil demon Narakasura not only tormented the worlds, he kidnapped 16,000 women, and stole the earrings of Aditi, the heavenly mother goddess, and usurped her territories. That was the last straw, and Lord Krishna came to earth to slay him. That was the hero kicking some serious butt.

In some parts of India, they celebrate Deepavali as the day Lord Rama came home after rescuing his wife Sita from the evil Ravana. And that was the hero rescuing the pretty hostage.

Which is why I really like those stories too. Have a happy – and safe – Deepavali.

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Related post:

What’s in the RM421bil 2025 budget

What’s in the RM421bil 2025 budget

  Budget 2025: Singles, senior citizens to get RM600 Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim tabled the 2025 budget, of which RM335 billion, or 79.6%, .

A divide so hard to bridge

From the UiTM dispute to the annual matriculation issue, Malaysia seems caught in a loop of racial controversy. But there are those who give us hope. 

THE SPM results are out. So, we can brace now for the annual lament of non-malays who will have top scorer children unable to get places in the public universities’ matriculation programmes.
It’s likely to be worse this year with more students scoring straight As and the number of matriculation places likely to be unchanged.

A Malay politician has already rushed in, telling the Malays who did not do well that they have nothing to worry about.

He is offering places in Giatmara, Mara and several other universities and colleges, promising them free education – and allowances to boot!

This, while other parents who are even willing to hold down two jobs to see their children get an education, are pleading for places. It must be frustrating for these parents.

The race divide in our country is very real.

The majority community and the minorities seem to be living in two different worlds, albeit in the same country. There’s already that controversy about Universiti Teknologi Mara and the parallel pathway programme for training cardiothoracic surgeons.

Despite close to 70 years of independence and more than 100 years of the various races and religions living together, we tend to know – or care – little about each other.

We even see “the other” as a joke to be laughed at, mocked, even bullied.

Take that teacher in Ampang. Four boys had thrown water bottles at each other. It is something quite ordinary – boys will be boys. So will teachers. When we were in school, we did not throw bottles, but teachers threw dusters. And they were unerringly accurate! They did not care about what race we were, that duster would land smack on the forehead of the errant lad.

This teacher in Ampang, though, does not seem so colour blind. He sent the four boys out to stand under the sun – no problem with that – but then called in three of them, reportedly of a different race, after just 15 minutes.

The other boy was left to bake for hours; he suffered a heatstroke and mental health problems. He has now been declared a disabled person and is unable to go back to regular school. The incident happened at the end of April, and as we go into June, we are told that no action has been taken against the teacher.

The boy’s mother, pregnant with another child, is devastated.

There was another mother who was devastated late last year. She had forgotten her two-year-old child and left the toddler in her car while she went about her work. That was on Nov 8. The grief-stricken mother was charged in court on Dec 22. It took the cops just a month and a half to charge a mother who had accidentally left her child in a hot car.

But the Ampang case was not an accident. It was malicious, as far as reports go. Yet, there seems to have been no real action so far although, according to the Ampang Jaya district police, the probe into the case has been completed and the investigation papers have been referred to the deputy public prosecutor.

What’s worse, the boy was served with warning letters for being away from school while he was getting medical treatment. Did the headmaster know that?

And there is that big question: Was the teacher racist? Was the difference of punishment due to the difference in race?

It should not be. Remember our current Prime Minister’s famous speech about “anak Melayu, anak Cina, anak India, anak Kadazan, anak Iban”? It was Gettysburglike, something we should all hold him to.

There can be no racism in schools. We don’t need people like that teacher in the system. What we could do with are people like Michael Tong Wai Siong.

For the last 16 years, the now 55-year-old has played father to three Malay boys. He first saw one of them when he was a 39-year-old visiting an orphanage in Gombak, Selangor.

The boy, who had learning difficulties, was sitting alone. Tong took him under his wing, putting him through tuition classes to make school easier. He also took the boy home.

Not only that, he also “adopted” the boy’s two brothers who were in a different orphanage.

He raised them as good Muslims, getting them an ustaz for religious classes and even preparing the early morning meals for the boys during Ramadan. It is heartwarming.

There was also Chee Hoi Lan, who was given the Ikon Ibu Sejatikeluarga Malaysia award in 2022. She raised a child who was abandoned at the age of two months by her biological mother, an Indonesian citizen.

Chee, a kindergarten teacher, adopted the child and single-handedly raised her as a good Muslim for 24 years now.

Both Tong and Chee are true Malaysians who understand what multiculturalism is.

I would love it if we could get more such heartwarming stories, especially the other way around. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to also hear of a Muslim who raises a non-muslim child in the religion of his or her birth?

There is also hope in people like 20-year-old Chinese lad Jeremy Wong Jin Wei and 24-year-old Malay-pakistani Zubir Khan.

Wong is Chinese but is as Indian as they come. He loves Tamil movies and Tamil songs and speaks the language fluently. He even has a couple of Indian names he has given himself – Jerogunathan Wongasamy, and Jerthalaiva Wongbeng, his Tiktok moniker.

While Wong may love Tamil songs, Zubir has become a huge Tamil singer with his hit single Macha Macha Nee Ennoda Macha, which garnered 3.5 million views on Youtube in just over five months. He, too, is surrounded by Indian friends.

In a country wracked by apartness, people like Tong, Chee, Wongasamy and Macha Zubir show us one thing – in the midst of all the bleak news, there may yet be hope for our country.

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