Growing together, pain and all

Idris Jala, Minister in the Prime Minister's Department and chief executive officer of the Performance Management and Delivery Unit (PEMANDU).

MINISTER in the Prime Minister’s Department and Pemandu CEO Datuk Seri Idris says Malaysia is not at the point of despair over the growing racial-religious strain in the country. Calling it “growing pains” and the “emancipation of democracy” due to the advent of social media, he says extreme views from both sides are voices of an angry minority and the majority of the people here are happy. He says the country is “going to get through this” and the future looks good and promising

RACE & RELIGION

> After independence and the 1970s we seemed to be heading towards racial harmony but 10 to 15 years ago that seems to be coming apart. What happened?

We are living in a highly wired society where people are very much exposed to what is happening in the world. The advent of social media has given rise to the emancipation of democracy. People express their opinions much more freely not just in Malaysia but all over the world. It is a new phenomenon. That is what we have to deal with in Malaysia where expressions of all sorts from one end to the other end in terms of extremes are being aired very openly as opposed to the past when they were dormant.

You ask why it is happening today. However, I believe it has always been there but that the avenue for that expression was not there until recently.

In Malaysia, as in many other societies, there are two types of issues – one is of problems to be solved like if there are not enough buses then we order new buses or if we don't have roads, then we build roads for the people - and the second is managing polarities.

These are not issues to be solved. These involve things like 'my religion vs your religion' or 'the interest of my ethnic group vs your ethnic group.' These are polarities. It is a struggle that we will continue to have because we are multi ethnic and multi-religious.

When you deal with polarities there can only be one solution, which is we need to be able to accept each other and our differences and perhaps even celebrate our differences. The only way to do this is through compromise.

> How much are the politicians to blame for playing the race card?

All parts of society - the priests, the imams, teachers and parents need to play an important role. All religions, all priests and all imams talk about the goodness of society and humankind. We have more than 400,000 teachers in schools and they have to do their part. 

Parents, regardless of whether they are Kelabit, Malay, Chinese, Indian or so on need to come out and inculcate the right values in their children.

Government leaders too must also play a part. This is an entire part of how society needs to unfold and embrace and work together in a multi ethnic society. When we put the right societal value and right DNA in our society which is multi-religious and multi ethnic, then we can't say 'My way of doing is the only way to do it'. 

We have to come up with compromises. We need to come to the middle. That is the right thing to do.

>  What you are saying is idealistic and good but there seems to be a lack of leadership in steering to the middle ground when authorities like the police question a student for liking an “I love Israel' facebook page, which is rather extreme?

On facebook you see an expression of all the things that people feel hurt about and are unhappy about. True and false, they come to the fore. If you are a Brit, you would ask what happened to the British during the London riots? There were all sorts of blackberry messages going around with people saying 'I can go out on the street and burn a couple of shops. Catch me if you can.' These people were daring the law enforcement.

If you are in the Middle East, you would ask what is happening with the Arab Spring. There is this tremendous expression on social media. This is a global phenomenon that exists today. Because of the emancipation of democracy, people are expressing their opinion because the avenue is there. With Malaysia, you see the same thing. We can't consign ourselves to a point of despair and give up.

Malaysia is absolutely not at the point of despair! Like many others, Malaysia is going through growing pains. We are going through a period of emancipation of democracy and voices. We are adapting to that. We are a young nation. We are going to get through this. 

The maturation of people's thoughts and views can only happen if all parts of multi level leadership – it can't just be the politicians – it must be the religious leaders, parents, teachers, NGOs and everyone in society doing their part. It is not correct to put the ball squarely at the feet of the politicians. 

All religions preach tolerance, being respectful of one another and doing unto others what you expect others to do unto you.

> What makes you so optimistic?

I am highly optmistic. When I go around, people are walking normally. A large chunk of people are happy with life in general and these make up the silent majority. Then there are those who are unhappy and angry who are on the fringes and they are the loud minority. 

When they express an opinion, they do it rather vociferously and through the social media. The majority who are contented do not express their views because they are not angry. So I look at both sides.

I lived in London for 4 years, in Holland for another 4 years, in Sri Lanka for 3 years and I travel a lot too. When I compare what's happening in those places and in Malaysia I realised that Malaysia is actually a very positive country.

 There are many positive things about us. This is a very good place to live in.

> So we are not sitting on a racial and religious time bomb?

No. But you have to admit that anger exist on the fringes. It depends on how you view it. If you only focus on the anger that exist today, then you will probably put your hands up in despair. 

But if you look at the majority of the folks out there and compare it with other societies, it is a very good society we are in today. That doesn't mean that we shouldn't find a way to embrace and make those people change their views and look at things differently. 

That is important to do because they are also part of Malaysian society. This is a challenge we have to face.

> So the Malaysian public shouldn't worry?

We worry about how to manage it because the whole world is struggling with this and figuring out how to deal with it. There is a raging debate going on how do to reconcile responsibility with the freedom of people to express themselves on the social media and the web. No one has found a solution.

There are folks who take a very hawkish view and say close facebook. For me, we must never go there. We live in a society where there is this new global phenomenon and we must embrace this. It can only be good if we know how to manage this. There are a lot of great things happening in the internet.

I look at it and say 'My God there is so much knowledge sharing happening on the internet'.

I was born and bred in the jungle, so the other day I was looking at the most bizarre thing. As a young boy, I was very curious about how we can trap birds so I looked up methods of trapping birds on youtube. And I saw that the Hungarians have an ingenious way of trapping birds. 

They cut an empty bottle into half, bury it into the ground and put some bird feed around it. When the bird comes to eat, once it gets into the bottle to get the feed, it can't come out. This method costs nothing and you trap the bird without hurting it. Without the internet, I would have never figured out how the Hungarians do it. 

We can learn how to make a barbeque pit, how to learn how to fix a car and so on on the Internet.

I believe in human endeavours in nation building. There are three important things for this which is the knowing, doing and being. You cannot BE a new nation with the right DNA if you don't have enough KNOWING. And if you don't DO the right things, you will not grow the economy to the right levels.

In nation building, the Internet is a very important catalyst for the competitiveness of a nation because it builds on the knowledge and society becomes a lot more knowledgable.

To be kiasu in a globalised world is very important. Then you can do things better and more competitively and you can win. When you can win you have the confidence to be able to stand above other nations and compete in the world that is so ruthlessly competitive by way of attracting capital and winning the global market. That is how you build nations.

For the life of me, I can't imagine, we as a country, would take the negative step and say we don't want any part of this highly exposed world. I think we should embrace rather than reject it. But people must be accountable for their action. There must be sufficient laws on sedition against people who clearly are doing things that bring fault lines into society.

THE ECONOMY

> How does the racial tension factor in or impact on investors coming in?

When we first started to look at total private investments three years before the ETP (Economic Transformation Programme) private investment grew at a rate of 3.1 %. After we implemented the ETP in 2010, it grew to 15.5% which is five times more.
Local and foreign investors are pouring money into the country. These are realised numbers not commited numbers.

Then look at the pipeline of investments that have been commited but not been realised. It is at a record high every single year over the last three years. You may ask how come?

Foreign and domestic players see that opportunities in this country are abound, otherwise why would they put their money here? Why has this happened? The World Bank measures countries in what is called “Ease of doing Business.” to see how easy or difficult it is to do business in a country.

Before the ETP, Malaysia was ranked number 23, then we moved to number 18, then 12, then to 8 and last year we were number 6, which puts us ahead of the UK, Australia, Canada and South Korea. The numbers speak for themselves.

I believe private investments is the leading indicator for the future of a country in terms of the economy.

Because if you get investments, there will be more jobs, people will benefit from it and the government's revenue will rise and the government can spend more money on the people.

I singularly put my hammer on one nail – private investments. When that happens, you can see the future looks very robust and everything else pales in comparisons.
Many countries have put the emphasis on public investment as opposed to private investments The consequence of doing that is that you run the country into a very high debt position. When (PM Datuk Seri) Najib (Tun Razak) took office he was very quick to say that we want to put a self imposed ceiling on Malaysia that our public debt-to-GDP shouldn't rise above 55%. That is a very important fiscal discipline that we put ourselves through.

The only way to do it is to encourage the private sector to take the lion's share of becoming the engine of growth of the economy.

> You paint a glossy picture of the economy about the 6.4% growth in the second quarter, that Malaysia is on track to becoming a developed nation and reach its target of US$15,000 (RM47,000) per capita by 2020, but in reality the man in the street doesn't 'feel' it. He is feeling squeezed all over because the cost of living keeps rising and house prices are unaffordable?

Malaysia is one of the highest subsidised nations in the world because the government has tried to make sure for a long time that the rakyat feel that prosperity.
Our petrol, diesel subsidies and the gas subsidies we give to power producers to keep the tariff low comes up to RM40 bil.

Everyday when motorists go to the petrol station to fill up, they already 'feel it' because the government subsidy has been helping them.

Diesel and petrol subsidies total RM20 bil a year which is a lot of money. And Petronas puts in gas subsidies of about RM19 bil which brings it to a total of RM40bil. Can you imagine what we can do if we reduce the subsidies by half and channel the money in the right direction for the poor?

When was the last time we increased our government hospital charges? 1982! For RM1 you can see a doctor and even get three months supply of medicine. But what has happened to the cost of medicine since 1982? It has gone up but we have not increased the charge.

We spend billons a year to keep the toll on roads low so that the rakyat will 'feel' and enjoy the benefit of our highways.

Billions are spent to keep our tariff rates low so that people can enjoy electricity.
But what are the consequence? The government has been going through a fiscal deficit for years as a result of the government trying to make the rakyat 'feel' the benefits.

In 2009 we sat down and asked the question “Is this kind of 'feeling-of-the-rakyat' philosophy and policy sustainable?” The answer is 'No'. So what do we do? There are only two things to do.

We have to either increase the revenue or reduce the expenditure. That is why I famously made one comment that if we don't grow the economy and increase by more than 3% and don't rationalise subsidies, then we will run ourselves to the ground.
What do we need to do? We need to make sure we have more investments coming in.
We started at a point where there is so much 'feeling' in our programme and every day the rakyat are already 'feeling' the benefits of the subsidies, the cheap public health, toll roads. But the feeling was there simply because we were running at a fiscal deficit.

Malaysia is one of the highest subsidised countries in the world because of its levels of subsidies so we have to gradually reduce this.

Despite recognising this, we asked in2009 what are the real pain points of the rakyat?
We had a public perception survey, looked at the media reports for seven months and the 'noise' coming from the mainstream and social media on what people were unhappy about.

All pointed to a few things that the people are unhappy about.

First was urban public transport.

We had a public perception survey,looked at the media reports, and noise from the mainstream and social media on what people were unhappy about.

All pointed to a few things. First was urban public transport. They were not happy with the KTM trains where people were packed like sardines, the state of Puduraya terminal, and the folks in rural places were unhappy that there were not enough rural roads, clean water and electricity for them. There was also a need to improve quality and access to education.

As for the bottom 40% of society who are poor, we need to do a lot more for them. And crime and corruption was the other thing people were unhappy about.
Despite the fact we are already in a fiscal deficit, we said we recognise that we need to put more money in these things.

Since then, we have built 4000 over km of rural roads. If you stretch out all of the road it would cover the distance from Johor Baru all the way to Bangladesh. And we counted the number of people who are connected from those roads plus clean and treated water and electrification, our estimate is that 5.1mil are already 'feeling' it who didn't before.

For urban public transport, we brought in 30 new trains, put in a lot more buses on the road and revamped Puduraya.

Last year, we carried 400,000 ridership every morning. So every single one of the 400,000 people who use the public transport already 'feel it.
We also introduced the Go KL free buses in the city area. These carry 18,000 people within the city area. And 4500 bus stops have already been improved from what these looked like before.

For the poor, we looked at the bottom 40%. And now 188,000 people have graduated out of poverty. We know every single one by name. We looked at poverty not through the lenses of ethnic colour but through needs and helped regardless of ethnicity.
We reached out to all 54,000 hardcore poor families and gave them cash everyday and insisted that they choose one of our Azam programmes to help them fend for themselves. We managed to get them out of hardcore poverty into the vulnerable group.

We were very targetted.

So if you are among the 188,000 families and the other 54,000 families that we have helped out of poverty you will definitely 'feel' it.

If you are among the 5.1mil people who live in the rural areas you will definitely 'feel' it.

People criticise us and ask us 'how come we don't 'feel' it?' It's because you are already enjoying benefits from the subsidies.

> But the figures you gave is from 6 years ago, the reality has changed with the rising cost of living and prices of houses shooting up?

We've done another study called GTP 2 since and another survey and found the concerns are the same but we've now added cost of living as one of the new things on the table.

What was our response to the cost of living?

We will do subsidy rationalisation more gradually and keep inflation lower than our neighbours. Historically our CPI is lower than many other countries.

We are one of the few nations on earth that controls many food items. Very few countries do this. We continue to do it because we want the rakyat to 'feel' it (benefits).

As for house prices, it is a big challenge.

When I was at Sophia University, Tokyo in 1980, there was a big survey done among graduates in Japan. They were asked how many expect to own a property in their lifetime?. Ninety percent said they didn't expect to. Why? Because of urbanisation, people are moving a lot more to the urban centres and the scarcity of land becomes real. If you go to Hong Kong or Singapore, house prices are unbelievable. People don't think of owning a property. Most think of renting.

Today, 71% of Malaysians already live in urban and semi urban areas. It is a real challenge to provide affordable housing.

The rate of urbanisation continues unabated at 2.4% per annum. This is a trend that is continuing because a lot more jobs exist in the city.

Today 6mil live in greater Kuala Lumpur. We expect this to rise to 10 mil in 2020 and for our total population then to be 31 mil.

When we say 10 mil will be living in greater KL, that is one in every three Malaysians so the pressure on homes is intense.

When we started the ETP, we had a lab on greater KL. We said if we have 10mil people living in the city what happens on a Friday?There'll be gridlock.

The only solution is to have the MRT. So we have to start building a massive network of urban public transport and we need to do it today.

I know we are putting the public through a lot of inconvenience but it is an absolute critical element of what we need to do for our city.

When you have the MRT and connect it to the LRT, the buses and make it a network, then people can live in the suburbs.

When I worked for Shell in London, I was the vice president for business development and I lived in a place called Cobham in Surrey.

Everyday, I commuted to work via the train which was a 45 mins ride. It would have taken me 1.5 hours to drive into London caught in traffic. That's totally undo-able and unproductive. On the train, I can drink a hot chocolate and read a chapter of a book on the train. I read most management books that way because on every ride I was reading a chapter which was really fantastic.

In Malaysia we are focussed on how to spread people out and get them to live in the suburbs.

We've also begun the idea of connecting Singapore to KL through a high speed train.
Cities need to complement one another to have a flow of investments.That is what happens with Paris – London (with the train). Then you'll see the dialogue between cities, in traffic, in investment, trade, and mobility of people. You see the cities flourish and a lot more vibrance and livability.

Architecture work in the city is a very important part because it is irreversible urbanisation. If you look at cities that are very well planned, they can be very boring. They are in straight grids and built on straight lines.

When cities are not on straight lines and built based on developers who try to optimise the land they have, we end up with crooked roads. In Malaysia we have a lot of this.
But today, we are doing things with greater care with more forward thinking and planning. The idea to put more highways into the city just cannot work.That's why public transport is the key.

> Do you think people actually believe the low inflation rates that the government is putting out?

You go overseas and look at food prices there. The issue in Malaysia is that we have enjoyed low inflation for a long time in this country. I had a meeting in 2010 with (former PM Tun) Dr Mahathir (Mohamad) when I briefed him on what we would be doing under the GTP (Government Transformation Programme). And he made a pointed comment. He said for Malaysia to be a high income economy, people's salaries must be high, and if salaries are high, then input to production will rise and the cost of living will go up. The problem in Malaysia is that we want to have high income but we want to have low cost. That's not possible!

When you want high income, you will come to a point where you will have a high cost society because 30% input to production is labour.

Look at what happened to many of the other advanced countries. Because of high income, high salaries, high input to production, the cost of living will rise.
The key is purchasing power parity which means that the rise in income must be greater than the rise in the cost of living.

But when you go and talk to the homeless people in the street, they speak of exploitation. They are not even getting RM1200 a month because employers prefer to hire foreign workers for lower wages instead of giving it to the local to do the job?

I joined Shell in 1982 and my first job was in human resource and already then Malaysia was having a dialogue about introducing minimum wages.

We have only able to introduce minimum wage only now. Why was it a problem? When Pemandu ran the lab trying to introduce a minimum wage, the employers wanted to keep the number very low but the union wanted to put the number very high. In the first week of the lab, the employers left the room and the second week the unions left the room! And the only ones left in the lab were the Pemandu people! So we had to bring them all together. I remember bringing them to a Japanese restaurant to encourage them to come back to the lab.

Eventually we came to a compromise and said you cannot come with a number that is lower than poverty line. I can't accept putting minimum wage lower than the poverty line index – which is RM900.

Some employers had wanted minimum wage to be RM750 and we said 'no way' you can put minimum wage below poverty line.

On the other hand if you put minimum wage at RM1500, many employers like the sundry shops said they would have to close shop. We were struggling with the small and micro enterprises so the conclusion was to peg it at RM900 but in the case of Sabah and Sarawak because of the case of transition and challenges there, we set it at RM800.

If you look at it, the cost of living in Sabah and Sarawak is actually higher than in Peninsular Malaysia.

Theoretically, the Poverty Line Index it should have been RM1200. But reality is reality. If we put it at RM1200, many of the shops would close and many would be out of a job.

As for the homeless if you come every Tuesday at 7.30pm outside Masjid India we have a programme for the homeless. We give them food, have doctors there to give them medicine and we try to find them jobs.

Two years ago when I was there, Ajinomoto factory was offering jobs which paid RM800 a month but out of the 300 or so homeless there we'd be very lucky to have 2 to volunteers to take the jobs.

One of the biggest challenges we have today is the homeless urban people. We must begin by giving hope to these people. We must minister to them spiritually. It is not just about giving them the jobs.

I asked one “Why don't you want the job?” and he turned around and asked me 'Why do you want to help me?”

That's an area we really struggle with. It extends beyond a job issue. It's about self esteem, confidence and hope for these people. If we don't find a way how to get them out from the rut, it is very difficult for them to say 'I want a change in my life'.
I remember that episode of two years ago when we were really trying to persuade many of them to take on the job at the Ajinomoto factory.

They said they didn't want to go because there was no housing and the employer said he would provide them with flats so they would have a place to stay. Then they said they don't have public transport and the employer said they would bus them from the house to the factory every morning and send them back every evening.

And they asked about food and the employer said food would be provided.
So ten of them (homeless) turned up for the job in the factory. They worked on Monday but by Friday all had left the job and gone back to the street, having stolen the mobile phones of their colleagues.

When you start thinking that through you've got to ask that fundamental question “Why are these people choosing to be there and not wanting to be employed? They have shelter, food and transport.'

It extends beyond the spiritual realm, hopelessess and the scope of how do you counsel these people. Under GTP2, the government has said that we need to work more closely with the NGOs because some have been very successful in doing this.
When I talk to the NGOs, they are successful because they don't just look at the physical needs of these people but also at the spiritual and mental issue, hopelessess issues that these people are going through and the despair. That I think is the first part. If you can get them out of that, then I think you can succeed.

I would say unequivocally that under GTP, we have really struggled with the urban poor and this is a real challenge. It is very difficult and is easier said than done.

>  How would you describe a developed nation in layman's terms?

A developed nation must be a nation that has high income for the country and for the individual.

The World Bank's popular definition puts it at US$12,600 (RM40,000) per capita. But we set ours at US$15,000 (RM47,000).

And it needs to be inclusive. All walks of society should enjoy the prosperity. And it also must be sustainable. The intersection of the high income, inclusivity, sustainability gives what is called 'quality of life'.

When you talk about sustainability, you need to think about the planet and environment.

If 10 mil people live in the city and all our rubbish is put out there on the landfill then what is in the landfill will one day seep into the water system, so we have to think about alternatives and our sewerage system.

And how do we clean our river? That's why we are doing the River of Life (Klang River). We have more than 500 sewerage treatment plants in and around the river that runs through our city. That is the wrong way to do it.

In the past when an area is being developed by a housing developer, we (the government) tell the developer to put a sewerage treatment plant there but that is not the best way to do it because during the monsoon season this will overflow into the river.

With the River of Life, we are closing over 200 sewerage treatment plants that are very close to the river and building two regional treatment plants. So that during the monsoon season they will not flow into the river.

We have to celebrate our river. The way we build our houses along the river we put the back of the house against the river. But go to the Thames and other places, people celebrate the river. The front of the house faces the river. That is premium. But here we throw rubbish in our river.

When we talk about being a developed nation, we must think about celebrating the green environment. The biggest green project that we are putting under ETP is the MRT. Under the MRT, we will be able to increase ridership from when we first started where only 12% of the people used urban public transport. Everyone else was driving into the city.

By the year 2020 we expect 40% to be using public transport. Then we won't pollute our environment and we get to keep the air clean. That is very important in a developed nation status.
If we don't think of the sustainability, then we will be really in trouble. We need to think about how to dispose our waste, clean our air.

People don't see the MRT as a green project because people see it as only to transport people. I see it as the single biggest green project as to how to clean the air in our city. That is part of the developed nation. We may not be able to express it so well to the layman but when we started to think about our city it is crucial of us to think about the livability and that people would want to live here.

I sit on the World Economic Forum where they put 30 world leaders together for the last 2 years to look for the new growth model for the world.

After two years of deliberation what we came up with is the exactly same thing as what we have put in our new economic model – high income, inclusivity and sustainability.

When you put a cold towel on your head and look at Malaysia's fiscal position it is an easy fix compared to other countries. There are two fixes.

The first fix is if we can rationalise our subsidy. Subsidy for fuel alone comes up to RM40 bil and if we take half or even one third of that away from those who don't really need them particularly businesses, we can give it to those who need it.

The second fix is the GST. In the UK the GST is at 18%, most of Asia have it at 10% but we are only moving towards 6%. At some point, if we can bring our GST to the level which is the global average, then frankly we'd have enough money for all the social safety net that we need. We can have the assistance to help every poor person in this country.

The good news is that we have already been able to reduce our fiscal deficit. When we started in 2009 we had a deficit of 6.6% and in 2010 it was a 5.6%, 2011 we brought it down to 4.8% and in 2013 it was brought down to 3.9%.
We were able to reduce our deficit even without deploying our big arsenal (of subsidy rationalisation and GST).

I look forward to the day we can find a way to introduce GST to the level it should be.
Right now, only one million people pay taxes so when we have such a narrow tax base and this is not sustainable. You can't expect 1 mil to carry the kavadi for the 29mil people! The consumption tax (GST) is very important because now we are asking everyone who buys something to contribute.

Beyond that, there are other things that contribute to a developed nation like the spiritual needs of a society. This lies with what families need to do and extends beyond what the government can do.

CORRUPTION

> How serious in the problem of corruption in the country?

There are three types of corruption. The first is procurement corruption which happens borh in the public and private sectors where projects are given to cronies. The trick is to have open tender and put checks and balance in the system.

If you read the Auditor General's report, it has a procurement accountability index which measures how closely the government agencies follow the right practices for procurement. Last year's report showed 92% were complying with the right procurement measures but 8% wasn't and this is what causes the report to become sensational.

The second type is regulatory corruption which is if you apply for a license, a new passport or to build a house etc and go to the government agencies, you are given a hard time or the run around so you end up paying a bribe to get it approved or get it quickly.

What we have to done is to ease the way of doing business.

We reduced bureaucracy, made a lot of processes and procedures very easy for people sp they don't have to pay a bribe to do business or get approvals.

The third type is political corruption where the electorate or businesses pay money to the politician and expect favours in return.

Many countries have transparent regulations asking all politcal parties to declare every donation given, who gave it to them, the quantum and this must be receipted and published for the public to view.

In Europe and the US, all politicial parties must be above board. If you run an MNC and donate money to a political party and if there are kickbacks, people will make the linkage and say you got the contract because of that.

I spent five years in government convincing political parties on both sides of the political divide to be transparent on political donations, that it must be receipted, declared and in the books for the public to see.

So far only Barisan Nasional has agreed, Pakatan has not. So while we made progress on the procurement and regulatory side, we failed with political funding.

But having said that if we didn' t make progress (in combating corruption), then the investments wouldn't be there. The numbers speak for themselves but our problem today is that we have lost in the perception.

The reality is that we have done a lot on the ground. We've put in the Whistleblower Protection Act so that if you have evidence against anyone for corrupt practice, you can come to the government and file the evidence. And you will be given three levels of protection there – anonymity, protection from criminal and civil liabilities. This is a very important deterrent yet very few have come forward.

The government is doing its part where we can but we are not perfect. The rest of society must play their part too. There are no takers if there are no givers. We must prevent people from giving.

I was shocked when a local university did a study four years ago where university students were asked ' When you graduate and get a job will you pay a bribe?' and majority answered 'Yes'!

And the next question was 'When you are employed and in a position of making a decision will you receive bribe?' The students said 'Yes'. And all these people are in the work force today!

It is a concern for us. We feel parents should talk to their kids and inculcate right values among our young that giving bribes is just not on, that it is a sin, illegal and wrong.

Religions must preach this in the mosques, churches and temples. Teachers must teach this in every school, every university and every college. Society must deter it. It is an evil that sticks inside the society. If all of society plays a part, then we can get rid of this evil.

Hong Kong fought corruption but they didn't do it overnight and Singapore is very good at combatting it. The lesson is that the fight against corruption is building the basic building blocks and you have to do it step by step.

Like putting in place the Whistleblower Protection Act, the requirement for political parties to declare their assets and donations, and the naming and shaming of those found guilty of corruption. If you build block by block, then over time you will build a wall against corruption.

MAS

> How did you feel when you heard about MH370 and MH17?

It was really bad and shocking. I know many of the crew on it. I don' t know them well but I know many of them so it was really, really painful. I spent 3 years and 8 months in MAS (as its managing director) and it really pains me . And I think a lot of the people who work there and how much of a shock it it is. When MAS has hit the second time (MH17), it was otally unbelievable. I was at a dinner party at a friend's house (July 17) when a friend of mine received a text that a Malaysia plane crashed and I didn't believe it and I said “No it cannot be true”.

And then next text was to say it was shot down and I said “it is definitely not true.”
How can you ever imagine that in a period of 4 months that one airline gets such high losses and fatalities?

On that same day, 500 aircrafts flew that same route. And I thought 'why must it be Malaysia Airlines' (that got hit)? It's hard. I am on a 40-day food fast with my church members and we will conclude the fasting on Merdeka day. The reason why we are doing this is because we want to pray for the nation.
I fast from 6am to 6pm. I am allowed to drink but I have only one meal in the evening. The point is this.There are so many things which we need to pray for this country.

In our church we just need to spend more time thinking about our country and we need to pray. Apart from talking about the economy and what we need to do , there are things which are outside our control. I have said this before many times in public forums that in many things in life we require divine intervention.

And such times like the MH370 we need divine intervention and for MH17 we also need divine intervention. If there is any time that would require people to pull together and have a sense of patriotism for the country, this is the time.

We are blessed as a country. We have never gone to war but at times like this, I wish every single Malaysian would rally behind our country and say 'What can I do for our country'.

I believe the incidents of MH370 and MH17 are a serious wake up call for all of us to see what we can do individually for our country and have a sense of patriotism.
I am always inspired by (South Africa's) Nelson Mandela.

About 6 years ago, my wife and I went to Robben Island and we saw the cell where they kept Mandela for 27 years. He didn't get to see his children and he didn't have his wife with him for 27 years. And when he was released after 27 years, he said 'let's forgive them.'

When he was in prison, he was made to carry a limestone together with the other prisoners from one end of the quarry to the other end of the quarry in the morning and the next day carry it back. My tourist guide was a fellow prisoner with Mandela and he was telling us the story and he put his arm around one of the white tourist and said “if not for Mandela I wouldn't be alive today. The kind of bitterness I have with all of you whites, I just want to wake up one day and go and kill someone to take revenge. But Mandela said 'when they release us from this quarry we shall forgive them'.”
I stepped back from that episode and thought 'My god this is a man (Mandela who has a heart' And he can forgive and forget.

Mandela always wears dark glasses because he can't see bright light because from looking at the limestone for 27 years, he damaged his retina.

There are times when there is some sense of bitterness in our society. If Mandela who was jailed for 27 years can forgive – what is there that we here cannot forgive one another for the hurt in this society? What is this bitterness in society that is deep enough for us not to forgive and forget any hurt that we feel towards one another in society.

It's about time we reach out to anyone in our society – to the different ethnic groups, to the different religious societies and say that 'I celebrate the fact that you are different from me'. What so diffcult about doing that?

Our pastor has said 'don't curse the darkness. Introduce the light.' 

Talk about the good things, about the virtues. That is what we need to extol in society. The more we talk about the light the more the darkness will disappear. That's what Mandela did – forgive then forget it. To me MH370 and MH17 is a wake up call for us to go beyond just the little petty things we have in this country