Date: 10-5-00 Time: Personal: - State Water Resources Control Board: Fill & Download for Free

If there is one sentence to describe why Malaysia, despite having many skilled people and natural resources in abundance is still not a developed nation, it would be, “Malaysia is not in a hurry and it takes things slowly”.Nonetheless, when compared to many developing countries throughout the world; in Asia, Africa, South America and Eastern Europe, Malaysia is one of the leading nations and arguably, the most advance in terms of development. It has all the infrastructure and facilities that developed nations have and the country embraces and use the most advance technology in many fields.One main thing that is thwarting development in the country is corruption and this has been the bane on advancement and the obstacle to achieving developed nation status.Here’s more about corruption in the country:Bribery and Corruption in Malaysia (September 20, 2016)An 11-minute video shown earlier this week claimed that it was easy for Indonesians to enter Tawau illegally, only by giving a bribe of around RM50 to RM100 to the Malaysian authorities who monitor the waters and take care of the ports.Strict action against cops allowing illegal immigrants into country - PoliceThat video and the accompanying report did not surprise me at all because such acts of bribery and corruption have been happening in the country for years and not checked. The authorities know about it and the public also knows about it so much so that bribery has been a way of life in this country. Talking about taking action against the culprits more often than not is just 'hot air'.News about a bank chairman and CEO involved in CBT and corruption, especially government owned banks, are also not surprising to me because this also have been happening in the country for a long time, some are caught some are not.I am discussing here common cases of petty corruption, cheating and act of briberies happening in the country, i.e. the ones that account for the small amounts involving millions of RM and not the large amounts that involve billions of RM that we hear about of late.The last time I ‘saw’ an act of corruption right before my eyes was at KLIA 2 upon returning from Ho Chih Min City, Vietnam after completing a three day business cum social visit. I was travelling alone.At the airport whist waiting to board the flight back to KL, which was almost a three hour wait, I was approached by a trader, Malaysian but Indian looking who said he is from Sabah) who had with him bags of luggage which obviously had exceeded one person’s limit. Since I wasn’t carrying any, he approached me and asked me if I could take care of half of the bags he had with him. After checking the contents and confirmed that he wasn’t carrying drugs or other illegal goods such as liquor or cigarettes, I agreed and only up to the customs/immigration checkpoint at KLIA 2.We boarded the aircraft with him seated next to me and had a lot of small talk during the flight.At the immigration checkpoint, everything went well and upon reaching the customs checkpoint after that, everything went well too. I asked him how he did that and he said he paid the customs’ officer.When I told some of my friends about it, they all told me that that thing has been a daily affair, it had been happening for years and everybody knows about it, it was not only me, many others have seen the same thing that I saw.I had my first brush with a senior official of the Malaysian Customs Dept. relating to ‘corruption’ many years ago. We were moving troops back from East Malaysia to our base in Taiping by ship and we had to call at Port Klang before proceeding by road to Taiping. Since the ship arrived rather late, after all the clearance at the port was completed, we had to go to the Port Customs’ office to get clearance before we could offload our cargo and transfer them to the waiting trucks there. When we arrived at the Port Customs’ office, it was already past 3:00 p.m. and we were told by a junior officer there that only that certain officer can sign the clearance and he told us to go to the Klang Club if we wanted to see him. So, my unit commander and I went to the Club and there he was, playing billiards. We had to wait until he finished playing before we could see him and upon seeing him, we showed him all the documents that we had completed to get him to sign the clearance form. He signed it but not before asking my unit commander to sign an unfilled form that he produced. It was an ‘overtime claim’ form.In the case of the police, many times when I get ‘caught’ for allegedly committing a traffic offence, I noticed the policeman, normally a member of the mobile squad, would approach me and show me two types of books. One is a ‘Summons Book’ and the other one, if one looks at it without opening it, it looks exactly like the former but when opened the book was empty and is full of blank pages. Upon reaching at your car window on the driver’s side, the policeman will first tell you the alleged offence that you have committed and ask if you want to ‘mengaku’ (plead guilty) or not. If you opt for the former, he would show you first the real ‘Summons Book’ and then the empty ‘Summons Book’ and ask you to choose. He would tell you the inconvenience if you sign the real one and the hassle you have to go through to pay the fine and if you sign the empty one, you only need to place RM50 cash in between its pages. In my case, sometimes, I sign the real one and other times, I sign the empty one and I believe, many people are like me.Once, I was travelling in a convoy ‘rombongan pengantin’ to accompany a friend whose nephew was to be married in Tampin, Negeri Sembilan. We took the PLUS NS Expressway and after clearing the toll at Seremban, I was stopped by a traffic policeman who told me that he stopped me because I was caught driving over the speed limit between km so as so and km so and so. He asked me to alight from the vehicle I was driving and then told me to open the boot. I did and as soon as he saw box full of money in RM50 denominations (the ‘wang hantaran’ that I was tasked to carry was RM12, 000.00). He took a piece and then left. I, of course, had to replace that RM50.The police has devised many ways to collect bribe money and one that I found shocking was about monthly collection done by a certain police station where almost all transport companies ‘contribute’ a certain sum every month so that their trailers, lorries or vans will not get summoned for various traffic offences such as overloading, excessive smoke, bald tyres, etc. If there were any special operations to be carried out to nab commercial vehicles committing various traffic offences, they would be informed before the operations were carried out and escaped being issued summons. The collection must have totalled a few million RM every year and I was made to understand that the money was shared between the station head and all the policemen.Besides the police, there were cases of corruption involving City Halls, Town Councils, District Offices, Fire Dept., Registration Dept., Agricultural Dept., etc. In fact, all government departments that have something to do with issuing permits, licences, approvals or clearance letters are all open to corrupt practices. We hear many cases of officials caught for suspected act of corruption and the recent arrests of senior officials in Dewan Bandaraya Kuala Lumpur (DBKL), Immigration and Registration Dept. testify that. Getting the Fire Department to issue clearance letters so that Certificate of Fitness for Occupation of Buildings can be obtained can also be a hassle and often, paying a bribe helps clear that problem. Even to get a Phyto Certificate signed to export animal feed made from the extract of palm kernels, for example, one has to pay a bribe to the local Agricultural Dept. officer in charge.Many bribe takers, especially those from the lower and junior levels, get involved through peer pressure, afraid of being ostracised, they join their seniors and take bribes.Rogue company owners and company directors normally have more than one companies either registered in their names or in the names of their proxies to tender or submit bids for contracts. The government or agency officials who are in cahoots with them would know which company to select and award those contracts or which company to give the purchase orders to. Having more than one companies is a way to avoid suspicion of practising favouritism or appointing the same company all the time.Cash are normally the preferred with most bribe takers and there are many ways how they get transferred from the givers to the takers. Some take goods such as television sets, car accessories, expensive watches, smartphones, computers, laptops, etc. instead of taking cash and some have their shopping sprees paid for by the givers.Some bribe takers are quite sophisticated; I was told about one case involving a government owned bank’s client, an SME entrepreneur in the food business who was told that his application for a RM5 million loan was approved and in order to get the official letter of approval he was asked to go to a certain café in Paris (yes, Paris in France) at a certain date and certain time to meet the bank’s officer. He needs to hand over a sum of RM250, 000.00 and the letter will be handed over to him after that. He also had to pay for the return air ticket for the bank’s officer and the hotel room for him and his wife for a three day and two night stay.Common methods involving government contracts or contracts offered by government controlled companies (GLCs included) are to mark up the contract value and they (the bribe takers) will pocket the difference). Some more daring bribe takers will just ask for the bribe money from the contractors direct where money will exchange hands at some secluded place somewhere.Sometimes, ‘bribes’ are offered in kind such as paid entertainment at kar-a-oke lounges complete with GROs or social escorts and room service in addition to a sumptuous dinner treat before that. The locations can be in KL or in towns at other states in the country, Jakarta, Bandung, Bali, Bangkok, Cheng Mai, etc. Many of them use golf outing as an excuse, this is often used to ‘cheat’ their wives. They will normally come back with expensive gifts for the wives and all paid for by their sponsors.Another common way is for the bribe taker to give his account number to the contractor where the money will then be transferred to the former’s account via the internet (or online). While some give their account numbers of local banks, there are some who have accounts in banks either in Singapore, Thailand or some other places in some other countries to avoid detection. The amount of bribe money varies from RM10, 000.00 to a few million RMs depending on the value of the contract.The Malaysian Armed Forces are also not free from corruption. Once, in a case involving an unmarried supplies officer in the military suspected of corruption checks carried out in his bachelor’s quarters (officers’ mess) during the investigation process found two large screen flat TV set in his room.The recent cases of corruption involving some middle and senior level officers from the Royal Malaysian Navy involving millions of RM as reported in the media also testify that.There are also cases where bribe takers are paid monthly or according to whatever schedule, quarterly, half-yearly or whatever, made between him and the giver.How to tell if someone is on the take?The first tell-tale signs and ‘giveaways’ include how the person dress up; expensive clothes, shoes, briefcases, wallets, pens, etc. The cars the drive and the accessories inside their cars - some would cost as high as RM50, 000 (car accessories alone), places they go to eat, where they go to for holidays, etc. If one visits their homes, he may probably find more than one expensive TV sets, the expensive home systems installed in their homes and the expensive furniture, to name some examples.Most givers, if not all, are Chinese and most takers, if not all, are Malays and the latter have a peculiar habit where the reasons cannot be explained; when they do something either wrongly or rightly, after sometime, they would talk about it as though what they were doing all the while are ok. Even when they have been on the take, they will still want to talk about it so, it is quite easy to catch them.“Melayu, lepas merompak atau mencuri mesti nak ceritakan hal itu kat orang.”At a tarik shop talk on corruption, my regular ‘surau kaki’, discussing corruption in the country, among others, after the Isya’ prayers, made a list of what we think are the twelve most corrupt ministries, government departments, agencies and organisations in the country. The list is based on media reports, own experiences, cases that we hear about and rumours. Of course, the list has never been verified and they are as follows:Ministry of Education (including state education departments)MINDEFCity Halls, Town Councils, District Offices/Land Offices throughout the countryPoliceCustomsFire Dept.JKRMinistry of HealthMinistry of AgricultureGLCS, agencies involved in handling loans and grants for SMEs and government owned banks such as SME Bank, Bank Rakyat, AGRO BankMARACommercial BanksThose not in the list are either no.13 or better (nonetheless, they are still bad for being corrupt) or they can be worse than no. 1 above and that’s where, perhaps, the billions of RMs changed hands.Corruption, in this country, is a very serious problem, it has been going on for far too long and the situation is getting worse. It has to be checked and totally eradicated and the government, with enough gusto, stamina and commitment and with the help of the many concerned people, can put a stop to it, immediately. Without corruption, it will enable the country to continue to progress and to continue to develop further, unhindered and when that happen, everyone will gain.I believe, if MACC is given greater independence, more power and more authority, they will be more effective in carrying out their duties and responsibilities. MACC officials must also carry out their duties professionally and be impartial, without fear or favour.