Corruption of truth in development

Most of the media reported that the deputy premier made the Manek Urai constituents a public offer just before the by-election last week: If they vote for the Barisan Nasional (BN) candidate, they will get a bridge and a mosque.

My question to the now-discredited Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission and all Malaysians interested in good governance is this: isn’t this an offer of a bribe? A bribe is often described generally as an offer to induce decision-making in a desired and particular way.

Development projects can be viewed as small work provisions, often made through small project grants, and are always provided for under the national budget. Such a process of ‘national development for all’ must always be a national agenda.

Abdul Razak Hussein, as premier, had created the Implementation, Coordination, and Development Administration Unit (then called ICDAU) which coordinated and implemented small developments project nationwide in 1971.

Special project funds were created under this budget line and were managed and massaged by federal officers called ‘State Development Officers’ (SDOs) through the country.

All SDOs reported directly to the ICDAU which then operated as the National Operations Room for development implementation, coordination and monitoring nerve centre of the nation.

That was Razak’s ‘RED Book’ system or Rural Economic Development system, which used the National Operations Room much like a Military Operations Room. General Gerald Templar called it “the war of winning the hearts and minds of the people”.

The Razak government applied it very successfully to the development administration model for which Malaysia is now very famous. Much of this is recorded in a report entitled ‘Development Administration for West Malaysia’ by American professors and consultants Milton Esman and John Montgomery.

Can basic needs for development, for example, the building of a bridge or toilets, be politicised as ‘voting for a party’?

Is this not blatant corruption and inducement? Furthermore, if what my friend tells me is true, the people of Manek Urai really need jamban (toilets) more than jambatan (bridges).

How can we allow needs-based development to be defined by political interests that corrupt the means and ends for political power in governance? Is this not the No 1 problem in Malaysian politics today?

Currently, all governance systems lack integrity for the absence of transparency and accountability. There is a glaring and wide gap between their espoused theories and their theories in use. They say ‘people first, performance now’, but this may mean ‘our people first, by our performance now’.

We were very good under Razak 40 years ago at serving the poor. Today, we do not even know what to do. Doing what is right in the right way and for the right reasons seems impossible for us. Systemic corruption has shaded all truth. Why?

Is it because we do not know who to define as ‘poor’ or we do not know who they really are? Or, is it that all existing means for delivery excellence have been so badly corrupted that the final goods cannot reach the needy? As they say, Harapkan pagar, pagar makan padi .

How do we then address such a fundamental problem when words no longer mean the same to planners and implementers? How do we make fundamental and radical changes to deliver service with a difference?

Two challenges ahead

Razak was also the architect and engineer of the New Economic Policy (NEP). Nothing wrong with that vision and plan to eradicate poverty regardless of ethnicity and economic segregation, and to restructure society to begin to reflect a Malaysian nationality and identity.

The central thesis of that policy was growth with equity; that if we grow the cake aggressively, then the growth portion can be distributed with some equity, and the visible distributive hand of the government could be even tolerated by market forces and the community.

That was all true until about the mid-1980s. Then there was the so-called privatisation policy: to move some public functions and assets management into private hands. The policy had two obvious, visible, and notable negative effects.

Firstly, it took the role of the disposal of public assets away from the Finance Ministry and therefore did away with the rules and procedures of prudent administration under treasury instructions.

The result was ‘piratisation of the public good’ or blatant and direct theft of public assets serving the public good. These were transferred to selected members of the political elite. Almost every public highway since the UEM-built one fits into this category.

The rationale cited was Razak’s NEP, but, as anyone who has worked for the government would say, this was never what he intended. This has became so bad that the pagar actually began to eat the padi. Some of us called it fundamental policy displacement and disorientation.

The second notable negative effect was the ‘piratisation’ of project and policy planning. Such project planning ‘initiatives’ became the ambit of privately motivated individuals and corporations who could sell their project ideas to the Economic Planning Unit (EPU) through both fair and foul means.

The EPU moved from being a strategic and long-term planning agency to becoming a high-class project handout and implementation agency devoid of treasury rules or procedures.

I want to congratulate the premier for the new NEAC which brings together some notable individuals for the first time in our history. Amirsham Abdul Aziz, who is chairing this ‘strategic and longer term planning group’, faces two challenges.

The first is to look beyond the internally generated statistical numbers and analysis, and to consider Malaysia’s competitiveness in terms of the changing world and globalised data.

The other is to revisit our central thesis of the \’growth with equity\’ model which may still be a viable venture. Unless we can learn to grow and create value more aggressively, we will fight over for whom or by whom the bridge is delivered in Manek Urai. All such projects become a political issue, instead of a development truth issue based on the needs of the people.

It is time we returned to real analysis of premises and assumptions in terms of longer term plans and strategies. Short term developments can be needs based. But, we cannot apply the project management approach to create real and new value for the nation in the longer term.

Let us get to the truth of every key policy problem issue through good and sound macro-analysis while avoiding the corruption of truth in any form. May God bless Malaysia.