Thursday 28 Mar 2024
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This article first appeared in Capital, The Edge Malaysia Weekly on February 20, 2023 - February 26, 2023

Many years ago, a friend of mine who was working at a think tank penned his first letter in the national language to his boss as an accompaniment to a report he had written. He signed off the letter with “Saya yang menurut perintah” — the Malay equivalent of “Your obedient servant”. The boss hauled him up on it immediately. “We are a think tank. We think. We don’t just follow!”

The boss, who was already held in high esteem by the intelligentsia, rose even higher in my book after that incident. For a young person like my friend, who was just starting out in life, a boss who sets the right professional tone is crucial in shaping the people who will carry this nation into the future, and the direction in which that future will take. Had the boss not commented on my friend’s slip, he might have continued thinking that to do his job well, he had to be subservient — when in actuality, the opposite was needed.

So, when the prime minister last month called on all civil servants to speak out against wrong­doings — including those that might be committed by ministers — I was sceptical of whether this was achievable. I appreciate the good intention behind it; but, in this country, speaking out, especially against superiors, could be a challenge as mountainous as Everest.

After all, this is the very work sector for which the signoff “Saya yang menurut perintah” was known for generations. It was only in 2018 that the signoff was replaced with “Saya yang menjalankan amanah” ­(literally, “I who fulfil the trust [of the nation]”). It was this culture of subservience that resulted in a special audit report on 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB), which was drafted for a parliamentary public accounts committee, being amended — at the alleged request of the then prime minister, who was the subject of the audit.

Which is why when one auditor dared to sneak out and preserve the last copy of the report — against orders to surrender it to be destroyed — she, Datuk Nor Salwani Muhammad, was later heralded as a national hero. No one can deny how daring such an act was, especially coming from a civil servant.

But the more insurmountable challenge in getting civil servants to speak out will be the bosses themselves — and whether the bosses can take (and welcome) criticism. The prime minister wants civil servants to speak out when something illegal has been committed. But surely it would be far better to speak out before such a thing even happens? Can Malaysian bosses in government take teguran?

Six weeks ago, the prime minister appointed his eldest daughter as the senior adviser on economics and finance to the minister of finance (that is, himself). How that idea could even have been sparked, let alone become official, defies all common sense on good governance. Did no alarm bells ring in the halls of government? Did no one hear it? Or did everyone think, “Not my problem, I want to keep my pension”?

In the six weeks since, the prime minister and his supporters have come out to defend the decision, claiming that the daughter was the best person for the job. In a country of some 32 million people, could a career politician really be the best option? Even if she were the best, ethics demands that the prime minister should have taken the second-best person, rather than the best-but-conflicted person. It took six weeks of public criticism for the daughter to resign — only for her to still be given a job serving her father.

And this debacle came soon after the prime minister appointed himself the finance minister — repeating the same dangerous practice that landed us with the 1MDB problem to begin with — insufficient oversight because the people who are granting permission are the same people who are applying for it.

What is most concerning is the failure of the government to recognise that just because something is not illegal does not make it moral. Nepotism and cronyism should never be accepted — even in the company of saints — so that there can never arise circumstances whereby an appointment is made for bad intentions, and so that no one has to grapple with their conscience in having to speak out against it.

Opposition politicians aside, everyone has been pulling their punches in calling out the government for what should clearly be acknowledged as a breach of good governance.

Admittedly, the government’s balance is still teetering. And where the other options might not be considered great, the compromise therefore is on the devil that we have yet to know, rather than the ones we already do.

But that compromise is a breach of ethics too. Because protecting the patron that is friendly towards one’s cause or politics will blinker us from seeing any wrongdoing.

This government is led by a party that has always claimed that it would do things better, cleaner. Well, that time has now come. This country does not need more slogans or verbal assurances, or exhortations for civil servants to speak up. It needs a government that acknowledges that it is not maksum (protected from sin).

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