MALAYSIA: Arrests Boost Anti-corruption Drive, Sceptics Unconvinced

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Anil Netto

PENANG, Malaysia, Feb 12 2004 (IPS) - The arrest Thursday of a Cabinet minister on corruption charges marks the second high-profile catch this week in Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi’s anti-corruption crusade.

The arrests come at a time that the ruling coalition is trying to convince Malaysians that it is serious about wiping out graft ahead of a general election expected in a few months, but some sceptics believe that many more heads have to roll.

Police and Anti-Corruption Agency officers brought Land and Cooperative Development Minister Kasitah Gaddam to the Sessions Court in Kuala Lumpur Thursday, where he faced two counts of corruption involving share transactions.

Dozens who got wind of the news flocked to the court premises. ”It was packed inside the court and there was an air of anticipation,” a lawyer who witnessed the proceedings told IPS. ”It was standing room only and they had to bring in an extra bench to provide additional seats for reporters. Everyone was fighting for seats to see the minister.”

Kasitah pleaded not guilty to abusing his position in 1996 as executive chairman of the Sabah Land Development Board in taking part in the approval of a share transaction in which he had an interest. He was also alleged to have deceived the board by concealing a firm’s offer of shares in its proposal for listing on the Kuala Lumpur Stock Exchange.

Kasitah, who is not as high-profile as his other Cabinet colleagues, was granted bail of 1 million ringgit (263,000 U.S. dollars). If found guilty, he faces lengthy jail terms, fines or both.

Earlier, on Monday, ACA officer and police swooped down on another prominent personality, the former head of the ailing state-owned steel giant, Perwaja Steel. Chia, who was handpicked by former premier Mahathir Mohamad, was charged the next day with fraud – eight years after ACA investigations first began.

Abdullah raised public expectations by declaring a war on corruption soon after he took over from Mahathir last November. This week’s arrests appear to boost that campaign, although at the time sceptics felt that he lacked the political base to introduce radical reforms and wipe out money politics and corruption.

The boost to the ruling coalition arising from Chia’s arrest was also dampened by news Wednesday that an opposition politician was offered money to defect to the ruling party, United Malays National Organisation.

The independent web portal ‘Malaysiakini’ reported that a youth leader from the opposition Parti Keadilan Rakyat (Keadilan) claimed that he had been offered 500,000 ringgit (131,578 dollars) to switch camps.

In the run-up to general elections, news reports often publish suspicious reports of mass defections of opposition politicians to the ruling coalition, accompanied by photographs of the defecting politicians handing in their application forms.

Critics say the recent high-profile arrests do not go up high enough and they will not be satisfied until the ‘ikan jerong’ (sharks) are arrested along with the ‘ikan bilis’ (anchovies).

Abdullah’s one-time rival, jailed ex-deputy premier Anwar Ibrahim, hit out from his prison cell near Kuala Lumpur. “There has been no action taken against the hugely corrupt, including Cabinet ministers who are involved in hundreds of millions of ringgit in commissions on arms purchase deals and in share allocations,” he said in a statement.

Anwar, now serving jail terms totalling 15 years, had lodged a police report against Chia and Mahathir in 1999 over their role in Perwaja, now saddled with 11 billion ringgit (2.9 billion dollars) in losses.

Abdullah insists that he is willing to go all the way in fighting corruption. ”Big or small, we will cast a net,” he told visiting regional editors. ”I am not thinking about political backlash at all because if we do, we will only get frightened. ”

Opposition politician Lim Kit Siang noted some similarities between Abdullah’s and his predecessor Mahathir’s first 100 days in power. ”Although 22 years apart, both started with a bang in the revamp of the civil service and the war against corruption.”

Lim noted that Abdullah needs ”to fully empower the Anti-Corruption Agency (ACA) and the Attorney-General to scrupulously follow the simple anti-corruption principles enunciated by Mahathir 22 years ago, but never implemented”.

Some also see Kasitah’s arrest as also linked to the upcoming elections in the north Borneo state of Sabah across the South China Sea. The term of the current state assembly expires on Apr. 12 and state elections must be held by Jun. 12.

Kasitah’s arrest could thus provide a boost for the ruling coalition campaign in Sabah, given the backdrop of graft and abuse of power in the state.

”In the past ten years, the ACA in Sabah had initiated countless corruption investigations, as the administration of every chief minister under the two-year rotation system (among ruling coalition parties) seemed to have spawned an unique set and legacy creating more misgovernment, abuse of power and even corruption,” observed Lim.

Some think Abdullah has not yet netted the big fish. They say that Chia was, after all, only prominent as a tycoon in the early 1990s while Kasitah is an almost unknown Cabinet minister.

Others feel that if the government is serious about corruption, it has to introduce radical reforms to the legal system and the judiciary and make the ACA more independent. At present, the ACA comes under the prime minister’s department.

”One of the main things Abdullah needs to do is to abolish the Official Secrets Act,” said Cynthia Gabriel, executive director of human rights group Suaram, pointing out that the withholding of information has actually strengthened the roots of corruption in society.

”While we laud his moves to fight corruption, they must be accompanied by the opening up of various other institutions and the repeal of laws that facilitate the breeding of corruption in society,” Gabriel added.