Let’s con the tourists so they come, but don’t tell anyone the truth

Remember? You could see the haze in front of your eyes. Or rather, you could hardly see anything outside, because of the haze. You also couldn’t see the Air Quality Index. Because it was a secret.

In 1997, 2000, and 2004 Malaysian government officials said the public must not know the actual figures for the Air Quality Index, because making money from tourists was more important. Instead you are only told if it is “good”, “unhealthy” or “hazardous”.

The Index is still an official secret.

Nothing illustrates the Malaysian politicians’ fear of exposure than this, and their fear of the power of information. So the government keeps a vise-like grip on information and promotes an unhealthy culture of secrecy encouraged by, and with powers provided under, the Official Secrets Act.

Almost every government document can be considered a secret. Critics of the law said when it was enacted in 1972, and amended in 1986, that “everything’s a secret, even how many coffees they drank at meetings”.

It sounded like an exaggeration. But in 1997 the government classified the Air Quality Index figures and in 1999 stopped letting the public know the figures, which would show badly affected air quality had become because of the haze from land-clearing fires mainly in Indonesia. You could see the haze, but the official figures were a secret.

Malaysia stops publishing Air Quality Index

The Financial Times, 7 August 1999

Months after Malaysia quietly stopped publishing the Air Pollution Index (API) rating of hazardous pollutants blowing across the region from forest fires in Indonesia, the air is so thick with smoke that politicians and activists have recently begun to take notice and are starting to complain.

Malaysia fears that if it reveals how dangerous the smoke is it will lose revenue from tourists just as it is emerging from the regional economic crisis. It is trying to depict the pollutants as normal.

Singapore, however, is regularly informing its people about the quality of the air through radio, television and the internet so they will know when to stay indoors.

Law Hieng Ding: data stays secret, tourism more important

International Herald Tribune, July 2000

The Malaysian environment minister, Law Hieng Ding, was quoted in newspapers Wednesday as saying the air pollutant index would remain classified because in the past the data were “manipulated” to depict a situation where the country was “in a perpetual state of haze”. “This affected the tourism industry,” he was quoted as saying.

Najib: It’s a secret because truth is bad for business

AFP, 24 June 2004

Malaysia said air pollution figures would remain a state secret due to fears the economy would be hurt by revealing how much smog from neighbouring Indonesia had blanketed parts of the country. “The only problem is that it gets distorted by the international media. It then gives a grim picture of Malaysia,” deputy prime minister Najib Razak said Thursday. “It could be overplayed and then it will have an adverse effect on the economy,” he added.

In 1997, at the height of the haze crisis, Malaysia classified the air pollution index as an official secret.

» It’s no secret: politicians love publicity, fear exposure