Why nobody in government starting from Najib has ever talked about “zero tolerance for corruption” to demonstrate their seriousness about battling cor

By Lim Kit Siang,

I visited the public display of the various laboratories of the Government Transformation Programme (GTP) at Sunway Pyramid Convention Centre, Petaling Jaya today.

I was pleasantly surprised that some of the concepts and objectives which I had espoused both in and out of Parliament have found their way into the initiatives proposed – which is a different matter about their implementation.

The laboratory on “Battling Corruption” referred to “zero tolerance for corruption” while the laboratory on “Fighting Crime” referred to battling the people’s “fear of crime”.

When I had advocated the former, it had elicited indifferent response while in the latter, there was negative reaction in the form of righteous denial there was ever the problem of the “fear of crime” among Malaysians in the country.

When visiting the various Key Performance Index (KPI) and National Key Results Area (NKRA) laboratories, the foremost question is whether there had been a real change of heart by the Barisan Nasional government, followed quickly by a flurry of other questions, such as:

• Why nobody in government starting from the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak has ever talked about “zero tolerance for corruption” to demonstrate their seriousness and commitment in battling corruption?

• Is talk about “zero tolerance for corruption”, removal of the people’s “fear of crime” and other laudable objectives confined only to the KPI and NKRA laboratories, without any impact on the Cabinet Ministers or national policy-making?

• Most seriously of all, why is 1Malaysia, the bedrock of Najib’s KPI/NKRA policy, pulled out of the GTP Open Lab Day, as its absence has overshadowed all the six NKRAs of crime reduction, anti-corruption, better access to affordable and quality education, poverty, better rural infrastructure and improved public transport placed on display.

The Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department and Pemandu chief executive officer Datuk Seri Idris Jala was kind enough to show me around the laboratories and to explain the ideas behind the various NKRA initiatives.

But as I told Idris, the most critical question is whether there is the political will to implement the various NKRA initiatives, particularly in combating corruption and fighting crime, and most important of all, in the 1Malaysia concept.

The record of the Najib administration for almost nine months does not inspire public and international confidence that there is the political will to translate sweet-sounding slogans into concrete policy and action.