As we move closer to the end of 2021, it is helpful to reflect on the current state of the country and critical national issues to develop course-correction measures to stay on track towards being a prosperous nation.
Unfortunately, careful observation and unbiased analysis suggest poor governance and corruption as the key underlying theme, and a leading cause of many pertinent issues in Malaysia, shifting our trajectory towards a failed state.
Endemic of corruption and poor governance
According to Transparency International Malaysia (TI-M) and World Bank estimates, since 2013, Malaysia has been losing close to 4 per cent of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) annually. Based on GDP data, this comes to RM40 — RM60 billion on an annual basis, which could still be underestimated given the high number of corruption cases in Malaysia that remain unresolved.
On top of that, it was reported that Malaysia lost RM1.8 trillion through illegal financial flows from 2005 to 2014, stemming from corrupt practices (equivalent to losing RM 180 billion annually over ten years).
Instead of creating jobs, wider aids to the needy, more comprehensive support to the small businesses, improving healthcare, building more resilient infrastructure (including flood mitigation), these precious people’s money disappear through worthless activities, and into the pockets of corrupt people and criminals.
This "multi-level-marketing” structure of money politics firmly upholds the system of patronage politics, creating self-reinforcing machinery that not only embraces but even protects this corrupt ecosystem, from leaders (in politics, public service, and private sectors) cascading down their reporting line.
Pervasiveness of poor governance and corruption behave like cancer at terminal stage causing multiple system failures plaguing the nation and killing it from within.
Cartels everywhere
We have seen reports of cartels that controlled RM3.8 billion worth of Government projects, Halal meat cartel feeding innocent Malaysian Muslims with only-God-knows-what kinds of meat, drug cartels moving RM 5.2 billion worth of drugs (simultaneously making money off the people they are destroying, and destroying Malaysia’s youths, i.e., future foundation), price-fixing cartels among companies handling export/import cargo at Port Klang, immigration cartels at immigration department issuing work passes, and also even grant cartels.
We have also seen reports of syndicates reportedly involving local and foreign secret societies, and most worryingly, in cahoots with local law enforcement.
All of this is a significant breach of trust between the people and the authorities, widening the pre-existing distrust between the people and the Government, exacerbating the already-degrading national cohesion and unity.
There is no Rule of Law without separation of powers
Even if we were to adopt the best technologies to overcome corruption (through digitalisation etc.) with well-defined laws, its effectiveness and reliability are in question if there is collusion between authorities and government branches, particularly between the executive and judiciary.
For example, lessons from the handling of the 1MDB mega scandal and the alleged corruption cases related to the undersea tunnel project in Penang indicate a serious lack of separation of powers on all sides of the political divide.
There must be a clear separation of powers and empowerment through independent appointment mechanisms, with independent and sufficient budgets.
The same applies to oversight bodies for more effective checks and balances. Without this, even the best technologies, systems, and laws can be bent – depending on who is in power.
Poor National Security status
Consequently, poor management, weak policy implementation, and Governance issues lead to alarming vulnerability of many aspects of national security.
These are fundamental or core aspects that Malaysia cannot afford to compromise.
In the following sections, EMIR Research highlights ten essential areas under serious threat.
- Military security: Internal weaknesses, such as widespread corruption, leave Malaysia vulnerable to external threats. As reported by TI-M, Malaysia scored 45% and received a "D” rating in the Government Defence Integrity Index (GDI) for 2020. Reports also indicate deep cartel infiltration in law enforcement agencies.
- Food Security: A global crisis such as the COVID-19 pandemic has exposed Malaysia’s vulnerability in food security when imports were halted, depriving Malaysia of its staple foods. Even for rice, Malaysia only produces roughly 70 per cent of the total demand internally.
The above figures combined with the Global Food Security Index (GFSI) score support experts’ view of food security not being the Malaysian government’s focus area and priority and the absence or insufficient food security strategy for years.
In fact, Malaysia has been receiving a zero score on this GFSI measure from the food security experts for years, from 2012 to 2020.
On a related note, these policy issues are made worse by the recent increase in food prices, which brings us back to the problem of corruption, food cartels, profiteering middlemen, and so on.
All of this places a serious question mark on our country’s ability to face growing population, reduced arable land, pollution of waterways and water resources, soil nutrient loss, increased public awareness on health, climate change issues, and even future pandemics and global crises.
- Water security: GFSI 2021 also shows Malaysia scoring "very weak” (at a mere 18.5%) in the "oceans, rivers and lakes” indicator, as well as receiving a qualitative rating of zero for a sub-indicator on eutrophication (enrichment of a body of water with nutrients, causing negative ecosystem change such as depletion of aquatic life and the worsening of water quality) and the highest risk rating of 5 for the "agriculture water quality risk” indicator, against a world average risk rating of 3.3.
The small fines are equivalent to a "pay to get away” scheme similar to the general culture of handling certain high-profile figures and their court cases in Malaysia.
However, as more and more of our rivers transform into polluted status, Malaysia’s ability to produce food would be critically impaired, given that 70% of the water resources in the country are for the agricultural industry.
- Disaster Management: 32,469 small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) ceased operations since March 2020 when the movement control order (MCO) was first implemented and another 37,415 after the MCO 3.0 enforced in May 2021 leading to even more unemployment and underemployment, and more people having less or no savings in their accounts.
Employees Provident Fund (EPF) chief strategy officer Nurhisham Hussein estimated in November 2021 that only 3% of Malaysians could afford retirement due to the massive Covid-related withdrawals (i.e., i-Sinar, i-Lestari and i-Citra) over the past two years.
While these withdrawal measures provided some financial relief to members during the pandemic, they have inevitably led to 6.1 million contributors now having less than RM10,000 in their EPF accounts. Out of the 6.1 million contributors, over half (i.e., 3.6 million) of them have less than RM1,000 in their EPF savings account.
The above are catastrophic figures without exaggeration, and the absence of clear and transparent outcome- and impact-oriented strategies backed by science and data to address these structural woes in the recent Budget 2022 adds to the grievous feeling.- Education system to create both morally and intellectually capable individuals: Former Minister of MESTECC YB Yeo Been Yin in 2019 and Education Minister Mohd Radzi Jidin in May 2020 both highlighted the observed year-on-year decline in the interest in STEM subjects in schools and higher education institutions.
For instance, 81.2 per cent of Malaysia’s internet users download media and play games (indicating a strong focus on entertainment), while an embarrassingly small percentage engage in productive activities such as professional networking (9.1 per cent), content creation (11.8 per cent) and learning from formal online courses (4.8 per cent).
If the numbers of STEM talents, technocrats, and innovators continue to be persistently low, Malaysia would get caught in the adopter trap, and Malaysia’s vision of an advanced high-tech nation will remain a dream.
Furthermore, the education system (and the family unit) is the foundation to create not only intellectually-capable individuals but also morally-sound individuals that reject the very elements capitalised by Malaysia’s dirty politics.
The political culture centred around ethno-religious polarisation and low levels of morality heavily rely on the people supporting the same mentality and similar levels of acceptance towards unethical, immoral, and corrupt behaviours – all masked under the disguise of religious and racial cohesion.- Retainment of talent and investments: Human flight and brain drain index (data available from 2007 to 2020) suggests that Malaysian brain drain has been on the rise throughout the period. Due to unfair identity-politics inspired practices as well as the corrupt and recalcitrant ecosystem of awarding those who know-who rather than know-what, the few and rare individuals coming out from Malaysia’s education system want to leave the country!
The above list is of course non-exhaustive, and is meant as a real wake-up call for all Malaysians.As shown, poor governance and corruption is a common denominator in the above issues. Even the fanciest policy papers are only as good as the implementation, which is in jeopardy if politicians, people in ministries, agencies, and the often-overlooked civil servants in charge of policy implementation have their agendas and are colluding to protect the entrenched corruption culture, as evident in the widespread existence of cartels in all sectors.
If Malaysia has to focus on one item, immediate and radical reformations on good governance can start to pave the way in ensuring the right people are in the right places, and that limited funds are managed properly. After that, everything else can start to fall into place.
This is an urgent plight to all concerned and sincere Malaysians to fight and call for "affirmative reforms” towards good governance, just policies, structures and legislations.
Rais Hussin, Margarita Peredaryenko, and Ameen Kamal are part of the research team of EMIR Research, an independent think tank focused on strategic policy recommendations based on rigorous research.
The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect those of Sinar Daily.