Mixed bag of reactions over Isa Samad’s open defiance, arrest of IGP’s son for corruption and the blog “Drug Bust Jails 22 Innocents” which  raise disturbing questions about  national integrity and the war against corruption

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Media Statement
by Lim Kit Siang  
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(Penang, Saturday): The arrest of the son of the Inspector-General of Police, Tan Sri Bakri Omar,  for corruption has been hailed as a vindication of the growing independence and effectiveness of the Anti-Corruption Agency (ACA).

It may be or it may be not.  Even if we concede the former, such a “baby step” is lost and  overwhelmed by the failure of ACA to act in  the past four months and  in particular in the past week, against the Federal Territories Minister Tan Sri Mohd Isa Samad who was found guilty of corruption and money politics in UMNO party elections and whose six-year suspension as UMNO member by the UMNO Disciplinary Board  on 24^th  June was confirmed by the UMNO Supreme Council on 7^th October though the suspension term was halved to three years.

The defiance of Isa, who found the UMNO Supreme Council decision “amusing”, refusing to resign as Federal Territories Minister in the past nine days as he has “unfinished business” in his Ministry, is an open challenge of the moral and ethical  plank of the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi and his pledge to lead a clean, trustworthy and incorruptible administration.

So long as a Cabinet Minister can be immune from ACA prosecution despite being found too corrupt to remain as a party member let alone as a party official, there will be no way for the ACA to establish its credibility, authority and legitimacy.

The IGP’s son is as entitled as any Malaysian to the benefit of the principle that a person is innocent until proven guilty.  It is however a legitimate public-interest concern for Malaysians to ask whether Bakri can succeed in inculcating the new values and culture of “zero tolerance for corruption” in the police force when he appears to be such a failure in the smaller unit of his own family.

This episode casts a dark shadow over the future of Royal Police Commission Report and its 125 recommendations to create an efficient, professional, incorruptible world-class police service.

The appearance  of the blog, “Drug Bust Jails 22 Innocents” http://corrupted-malaysia.blogspot.com, narrating the traumatic experience of a young professional and 21 other innocent victims in a police drug bust in a famous nightclub at Sri Hartamas last month -  the corruption, brutalities,  abuses of power and the incarceration at Pudu Jail which  they experienced -  raises the question whether the Royal Police Commission’s 18-month work was a total waste of time, as nothing in the Police force  had changed.

Clear signals are urgently needed from Abdullah on his pledge to lead a clean, accountable, trustworthy and incorruptible government before Malaysians lose all faith in his ability to deliver altogether.

 
(15/10/2005)