Is it an April Fool’s Day – Who is really helping us fight corruption?

Life! What’s a life when it has a habit of sweeping us up with its momentum? Quite often we do recognize that we have no choice other than to allow ourselves to be swept up and follow whatever issues we find ourselves having to address as we go along. Is it an April’s Day joke or what, when someone, no an ordinary person, had expressed regret in helping someone to distribute some millions of dollars to politicians before the 2013 general election in an Instagram post? He may have come out ‘clean’ when he understood the furore, and with hindsight, he wishes he didn’t. But he may have violated some banking regulations and money laundering procedures for helping out, even though there is no such political financing law as yet.

Talking about the banking system, it was reported that $101 million was hacked out of the Central Bank of Bangladesh. Some $20 million went to Sri Lanka and has been recovered while the rest of the money went to the Philippines and largely into accounts of casinos there. An individual was able to go to a bank and walk away with $30 million in cash according to one report. The ease with which the cash had entered into the Philippines raises profound money laundering issues. Is it a number game we are playing here?

In the same way, the currents in oceans and rivers can be difficult or impossible to fight against; you are being pushed in a certain direction. You are probably aware of how unsubtle the cosmos is being in terms of ensuring you do move towards a certain point or destination. Almost two year ago, on 22nd February 2014, Transparency International Malaysia (TI-M) issued a press statement urging 1MDB not only to be more transparent in its corporate reporting but also that it must be reported in a timely manner, demonstrate greater transparency, accountability, maintain high standards of accuracy and completeness in its records. TI-M also strongly urged our government not only to set up a special high level taskforce to conduct a full investigation into the numerous allegations of massive billion ringgit financial and commercial issues involving 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) but also to investigate into related concerns by the rakyat.

Furthermore, 1MDB’s finances are high level issues of public importance as well as of national interest as it involves tax payers’ money and the potentially consequential damaging impact that it poses to the banking system and the nation’s economy. 1MDB, as a corporate citizen, has a role to play and must exercise their professional obligations both to their client and society even though 1MDB has repeatedly stated that its finances are in order. Meanwhile, the president of 1MDB announced that, “1MDB would repay RM6bil in the next three weeks, leaving it free of short-term debt and bank loans and with at least RM2.3bil in the bank”.

Recently, TI-M acknowledges the success of the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) and applauds MACC for taking action against a senior officer from the Youth and Sports Ministry who was alleged to have committed procurement fraud and corruption amounting to RM 107 million over six years. TI-M believes that the current detection of procurement fraud within the Youth and Sports Ministry could well be the tip of the iceberg, and urges MACC to continue its efforts of investigating other possible cases in order to bring the culprits to justice regardless of the stature of the individuals involved. However, in September 2014, MACC was also successful in detaining twelve (12) Customs officers, including a senior State Director for alleged corrupt activities involving hundreds of millions of ringgit worth of contraband items and another arrest of five senior Customs officers who stand accused of 24 counts of accepting bribes totalling RM76,000 related to liquor smuggling. Any ideas what the outcome of these cases are? Has anyone gone to jail slapped with a fine?

By the way, sport is, indeed, of public interest, played and watched by billions around the world, whose tax money often fund the hosting of major sporting events. Sport is a global phenomenon engaging billions of people and generating annual revenues exceeding $145 billion in 2015 according to an estimate by auditors, PriceWaterhouse Coopers. Wherever there is big money in sport, there seems to be corruption. Transparency International’s Global Corruption Report: Sport 2016 highlighted on bribery and match-fixing in sports and the primary responsibility for reforms lies with sport organizations itself. And now the world soccer may have a new boss, but it will take long term sustained efforts by Fédération Internationale de Football (FIFA) to convince fans across the globe that the organization has really changed and is serving their interests, rather than its own. In our home ground, we can only hope that our sport associations take the cue from the unprecedented assault on FIFA which might open the door to extensive change that will have positive spill over effects onto other sports in Malaysia. How many lessons are out there?

#Malaysia #SubangJaya #TransparencyInternationalMalaysia