Cabinet on Wednesday should ask for Musa Hassan’s resignation as IGP in view of the 25-rank drop of Malaysia’s security indicator

By Lim Kit Siang,

The Cabinet on Wednesday should ask for Tan Sri Musa Hassan’s resignation as Inspector-General of Police in view of the 25-rank drop of Malaysia’s security indicator resulting in a three-point drop in Malaysia’s global competitiveness ranking in World Economic Forum (WEF) Global Competitiveness Report 2009-2010 released last week.

Malaysia has dropped three positions to 24th from 21st ranking last year in the latest WEF GCR announced just before the WEF’s annual meeting of the New Champions, dubbed “Summer Davos”, in Dalian China.

This was essentially the result of a much poorer assessment of its institutional framework – with every indicator in the area exhibiting a downward trend since 2007, causing Malaysia to tumble from 17th to 43rd position in this dimension in just two years.

Security in Malaysia is of particular concern with its ranking dropped 25 levels to 85th.

The WEF GCR sub-index on “Security” is made up of four indicators and Malaysia scored very poorly in everyone of them, viz:

Business cost of terrorism	97
Business cost of crime and violence	95
Organized crime	83
Reliability of police services	48

This is what the WEF GCR 2009-2010 stated:

“According to the business community, the potential of terrorism (97th) and crime (95th) both impose significant costs.”

A comparison with the WEF GCR 1999 highlights the worsening of the crime situation of the country in the past ten years, which was supposed to be rectified by the Royal Police Commission as the first initiative of the former Prime Minister, Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi five years ago – but the reverse has taken place, with the country in the throes of the worst crime-and-order situation in the country’s history.

There are only two indicators on the security sub-index in the WEF GCR 1999 report, one on “Effectiveness of Police Force” and the other on “Organized Crime”.

Malaysia was ranked No. 25 out of 59 countries in 1999 on “The effectiveness of police force” index to measure “what extent can police service be relied upon to enforce law and order in your country” with “1=cannot be relied upon at all; 7= can always be relied upon”.

Malaysia scored 5.14 and was ranked No. 31 out of 59 countries in the WEF GCR 1999. Ten years later, in the WEF GCR Report 2009-2010, Malaysia was downgraded to 4.7 and ranked No. 49 out of 133 countries.

Countries which ten years ago were regarded as less safe and secure as their police force were not as reliable, competent and professional have overtaken Malaysia in the estimation of foreign investors – including countries like South Korea, Vietnam and Taiwan.

The index on “Organised Crime” for Malaysia in the past decade is most shocking and outrageous.

This indicator poses the question whether “organized crime (mafia-oriented racketeering, extortion) impose costs on business in your country” with “1=significant costs; 7=no costs”.

Malaysia scored 5.76 and was ranked No. 22 out of 59 countries in 1999 but ten years later, the score went down to 5.0 and plummeted 61 places to be ranked No. 83 out of 133 countries.

Among the countries Malaysia has overtaken in the past ten years in having a more serious problem of “organized crime” in Asia are Hong Kong, South Korea, India, China, Thailand, Indonesia and Japan.

The WEF GCR report on the security situation in Malaysia is an indictment on the service record of Musa Hassan as he must singly bear the greatest blame for the worsening security situation in the country which has undermined Malaysia’s economic well-being and international competitiveness as he was the nation’s top cop in the past three years.

If Najib is serious about efficiency and productivity of public service delivery, we should be having a new IGP as there can be no worse KPI for Musa Hassan as IGP in the past three years than the WEF Global Competitiveness Report citing worsening security as a major reason for Malaysia’s three-point drop of Malaysia’s global competitiveness.

It is most shocking that Musa should have his tenure as IGP renewed for another year. Will the Cabinet now ask for Musa’s resignation as IGP in view of the blistering WEF GCR 2009-2010 on the dismal security situation in the country under Musa’s watch?