Corrupt in political party but clean enough in Cabinet

As I had undertaken, I told Parliament during the 2006 budget debate on Monday about the corruption poll at this blog in the week ending the same day, which showed that 83 per cent of the over 1,000 visitors who took part in the poll “How well is the govt doing in its fight against corruption” were disappointed or very disappointed by the government’s fight against corruption almost two years after the Pak Lah premiership.

I conceded that the poll on this blog is unscientific as being confined to the blog readers and therefore neither a random nor representative survey. I pointed out however that the poll results compared favourably with the corruption poll conducted at the same time by the official Malaysian government portal
http://mawar.www.gov.my/MYGOV/BI/Directory/Citizen/Home.htm under the subject “Do you feel that corruption in the public sector has been reduced?

Under the Malaysian government portal poll, an even higher percentage of 85% polled expressed their disappointment, saying they “disagree” or “strongly disagree” that there is an improvement in the fight against corruption.

The corruption poll on this blog was a follow-up to the SMS poll conducted by former Inspector General of Police, Tun Hanif Omar, among 34 of his friends to rate how well the government was doing in its fight against corruption.

The 34 comprised four retired police officers, four retired PTD officers, one local authority officer, three bankers, one developer, three lawyers, four businessmen, 10 corporate executives, one lecturer, one engineer, one accountant and one artist.

Out of a rating from 0 to 10, 12 of the 34 gave a pass rating of 5 -7, while 22 gave a failure rate, i.e. 10 persons rating 4, eight of 3, one each of 2 and 1, and two gave a rating of zero, i.e. a failure rate of 65%.

I told Parliament that there were cynics and skeptics over Hanif’s penning about corruption. I was thinking of posts like the one from “Just-A-Cake” who asked: “A ‘former’ again? … Also, am more interested on what the ‘former’ has done ‘during’ his term rather than what can be done/revealed ‘after’ his term.”

Or “stonecastle”, with his caustic comment:

“What did Haniff do during his time as IGP against corruption? Nothing! Police corruption was already evident during his time. Now he is trying to appear as a knight in shining armour.”

I gave a different take in Parliament, contending that when an ex-IGP is also writing about corruption in the country, it is a certification and confirmation that corruption in Malaysia has reached a very serious stage – as backed by Hanif’s SMS poll, the official Government Portal poll and the poll on this blog.

I lamented the failure of leadership by example in the fight against corruption, referring to the case where the government is “more corrupt than the party” - a person suspended for six years as UMNO Vice President yet clean enough to continue as Cabinet Minister for over four months. The example is none other than Mohamad Isa Abdul Samad, suspended UMNO Vice President but serving Minister for Federal Territories.

What has Hanif to say about corruption in his next column in the Sunday Star? What has Nazri Aziz, Minister in the PM’s Department, got to say about corruption during the winding-up of the budget debate on Oct. 17?