When accountability is desperately needed

THE revelation this week that the government has successfully recovered RM15.5bil in public funds within two years is a testament to the Madani administration’s ongoing efforts to combat corruption and leakages.

Plaudits should be given to Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim for spearheading these efforts because in his words, “moral principles and integrity must be the basis of any economic policy because the government cannot expect the people to bear the burden without a guarantee of transparency in national financial management”.

Anwar also questioned how the people and previous leaders could “allow this garbage to drag on for decades”, referring to the culture of leakage and abuse of power that has become endemic.

Respectfully, I would add to this the culture of sweeping everything under the carpet or simply put – a lack of accountability.

We are in a situation whereby Malaysians in general demand accountability from our elected representatives but unfortunately the PM’s Cabinet members may not share the same enthusiasm in terms of the culture of accountability.

And this demand has heightened because of the exponential flow of information via social media and other channels like WhatsApp, etc.

We live in an interconnected world, and as the tax man improves his reach in terms of tax collection, more and more Malaysians are paying more taxes and with more taxes, we are also demanding more responsibility.

The ministries of Education, Transport and Sports have been in the news for a number of less than pleasant reasons but in each of these cases, we have yet to see heads roll or concrete steps taken to assure the public that there will be no repeat incidences.

Let’s start with Education Minister Fadhlina Sidek.

The tragic death of 13-year-old Sabah schoolgirl Zara Qairina Mahathir in July, the gang rape in a Melaka school involving four male students and a similar incident in Baling, Kedah, also involving four male students, both in early October, and most recently the senseless murder of 16-year-old Yap Shing Xuen in a Bandar Utama school toilet.

These criminal incidences coupled with rising school dropout rates and the shocking statistic that a staggering 120,000 Year One students nationwide cannot read, write or count proficiently have seen widespread backlash against the ministry.

It is no surprise that Education Department director-general Mohd Azam Ahmad said a lot of issues in the ministry and schools in general have been “swept under the carpet”.

The level of violence in schools is unbelievable. Yes, fingers will be pointed at excessive use of social media and violence perpetuated by gaming and the breakdown of families, but that’s not the point.

There must be an urgent, immediate response mechanism for teachers and headmasters to do more to curb violence.

Teachers need to be able to identify potential students who may pose a threat to the security of others. Doing something after the fact is of no use. But it looks like the Education Minister is more concerned about perception than reality in fixing this matter.

As for Transport Minister Anthony Loke, it has become beyond a joke that the KLIA aerotrain keeps breaking down – by all accounts 20 times since July 1.

Malaysia Airports Holdings Bhd (MAHB), which sits on an enormous amount of money, is not fixing this embarrassing situation. Blaming the contractor and the supplier is not what Malaysians want to hear.

After all, the total cost of the KLIA aerotrain replacement and overhaul was RM456mil. And this is on top of the more than two years that passengers were deprived of this basic service.

Loke must demand results and not just react to the latest round of breakdowns. He has said that his ministry will initiate action against MAHB for the series of repeated technical failures involving the aerotrain system, including imposing fines.

This is not good enough. The aerotrain system has become a bad joke – it’s now being called the error-train – but Malaysians are not laughing. Heads must roll.

And finally, we come to the mother of all scandals.

Oct 30 is D-Day for Malaysian football as a Fifa tribunal presides over an appeal made by FAM over the RM1.9mil fine imposed on the association and a suspension of seven players from the national team.

FAM and the players were sanctioned for breaching Article 22 of Fifa’s disciplinary code, which relates to forgery and falsification.

“National” football players is a misnomer because the seven were given a quickfire naturalisation process in just four months.

They hail from Argentina, Spain and Brazil, yet the authorities fast-tracked their naturalisation process to use Fifa’s heritage status clause.

This allowance has been used by countries like Japan and Indonesia but the reason why Malaysia is sanctioned is because Fifa has called out as forgeries the birth documents of grandparents produced by FAM showing birth places in various Malaysian states.

Fifa is not in the business of asking a country who to issue passports to, but the onus on producing legitimate documents is the responsibility of a member country.

In 2024, the Fifa appeals tribunal presided over 54 cases. Guess how many of these 54 appeals succeeded? None.

The tribunal members consist of former high court judges from various countries and is presided by a retired Belgian Supreme Court judge. To hope that our appeal will be successful would be wishful thinking.

The tepid and lukewarm response from our Youth and Sports Minister Hannah Yeoh when this scandal first broke is disappointing and shows a lack of leadership.

This is reputational, leadership and a brand crisis all-in-one that has engulfed our national sport.

I would say that the forged documents are worse than the match-fixing scandals in the 1990s, because in this case, we have fixed ourselves.

Anwar said this week that silence and compromise regarding these old practices caused the country to incur a huge debt burden and systemic damage in fiscal management.

He was of course referring to the culture of leakage and abuse of power that has become endemic. But he could easily have been talking about accountability in the highest places of government.