Of Corruption & The Corrupted

Yesterday's newspapers reported that a senior Education Dept. official in Sabah was being charged for alleged corrupt practices involving RM92,800. Today, the guy's been charged with a another involving RM6,800. By doing simple maths, this guy would have accumulated a total of about RM100,000. Of course, this is just the money they found out about. Perhaps he managed to stash nearly RM1million before he got caught no-one will know.

Anyway, RM100,000 is relatively a small amount for a government official to 'eat'. I don't look down on money and if someone gives me that amount for free I'd gladly take it. But the money can at most be used to send your kids for one year of education in Australia and that's it.

My main point is this. Why is the ACA catching all these small fries? Why is ACA wasting tax-payers money going after all these poor scapegoats? I mean it is a good thing to see corrupt officials getting charged but what about the big guns eating millions and billions of ringgits?! And the first person to charge in court isn't all these low-level officials eating RM100,000. The first person to be charged for corruption is Malaysia's 4th Prime Minister Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamed. With undisclosed wealth amouting to tens of billions of ringgits courtesy of Petronas (i.e. Malaysian citizen money), this guy could be one of the richest former leaders in the world! He's the best friend of Robert Mugabe going to the extend of urging Malaysia's government to offer the latter a place in Malaysia should he decide to go into exile. Absolutely ridiculous.

When it comes to politicians, the ACA will always say 'oh yea..we're investigating him' but charges are never made. There are so many obvious candidates to be investigated and charged too! If ACA has any legitimate reasons not to charge Dr.M, they could easily charge Rafidah Aziz for her part in the AP scandal, Najib for receiving millions for defense contracts, Daim Zainuddin for siphoning out billions of ringgit to buy African and Eastern European banks, and the guy who started Project IC giving illegals MyKads, bla bla bla..there's too many! Now these people will say 'PROVE IT' because they are so confident that they will be let off the hook. Even if there is evidence, they will say 'this case is closed' or 'It looks like me, sounds like me but nobody can 100% say it's me'. In the totally impossible scenario where the ACA does eventually want to charge a big croc, the AG will say 'nope, the evidence isn't enough'. Who does the ACA work for? Who does the AG work for? Barisan? UMNO? Or the people?

The ACA will say 'hey, we've charged somebody before, just look at Kasitah Gaddam'. So what happened to the case now? Isn't he a free man? And what about the rich businessman who got charged at the same time? Isn't he still walking around free?

The scenario gets worse. I got this article from The Star Online today.

A bribe no less, state ACA probes RM9 pay-off

KOTA BARU: The amount may be small but a bribe is still a bribe.

That was what Anti-Corruption Agency (ACA) Deputy Director-General Datuk Zakaria Jaffar emphasised when he revealed that the lowest bribe amount the agency investigated in Kelantan was RM9, in 2004.

“The measure of culpability is not in the amount ... the amount may be small, but it’s still an offence under the Anti-Corruption Act 1997 ... for giving a bribe,” he told reporters here.

Earlier, he attended the handing over of duties by state ACA director Md Yusof Md Zain, who will assume the post of Johor ACA director, to Mohd Jaafar Hussin.

Zakaria said the highest bribe amount the agency investigated in Kelantan in the last five years was RM1,500.

He also said that during that period the Kelantan ACA received 1,931 tip-offs and investigation papers were opened on 218 cases.

“A total of 60 people were arrested and charged with corruption in those five years.” – Bernama

So they're investigating and charging people guilty of bribes of RM9 (roughly USD2.80) to RM100,000 but the big crocodiles gobbling up millions and billions are still running loose.

I say chop off the head first. Go for the top. Then again I'm not ACA. I'm just the boss of ACA who can't do anything as UMNO rapes the country over and over again.

God save Malaysia.