“It is very important for the people to realise that while this government must be more transparent, more accountable, it does not mean that every step of the way must be (told about)."
- Prof Jomo Kwame Sundaram
Zaid Ibrahim, the maverick of Malaysian politics, thinks the government is mad for classifying the Council of Eminent Persons (CEP) report as an official secret.
CEP member KS Jomo, in arguing that for the contents of the report to remain classified, said, "There are very delicate things. Information can be abused. It's very important because, for example, many things that I talked about (in the report) there are details which obviously would affect certain businesses and we have to be very careful about them (the information). So likewise things that affect other countries. We have to be very careful about them.”
So not only are domestic national interests threatened by the declassification but so will common interests with foreign countries. The prime minister has implied that the findings of the CEP were for his eyes only as if the CEP was some sort of kitchen cabinet. Jomo, meanwhile, said the information should be shared with the relevant ministries. All this for a report which is supposed to save Malaysia.
In a piece arguing for the declassification of the CEP report, I wrote: “If the prime minister wanted unvarnished information, he should have just appointed advisers in non-official capacities to give him input during his decision-making process. This way, it is his business and his business alone, and we would judge his decisions were based on the efficacy of his policies.”
From the scraps of information we get, the CEP report not only contains information about businesses operating in Malaysia but also in foreign countries - which would be damning if it ever got out. The CEP also formed a five-member Committee on Institutional Reforms (IRC) because it said: “[...] economic reforms on their own could not bring the desired change unless accompanied by institutional reforms”. The committee would report to them and then they would report to the PM.
Last year the IRC sent their final report to the CEP and briefed the prime minister. Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Liew Vui Keon, responding to a question in Parliament by Maria Chin Abdullah (Harapan-Petaling Jaya) as to when the report would be available to members of parliament and the public, said, “The decision to make this report known to the public will be made after the report is discussed in detail by the cabinet in the near future.”
The recommendation by the IRC has yet to be made public. I suppose the government could redact certain information from the report for national security reasons but one wonders what exactly constitutes national security when it comes to reforming institutions of the government?
Maybe the current government realises that the reforms they promised would disrupt the ecosystem of corporate and political power in this country? Maybe the government understands that the reforms promised would go against the racial and religious power structures that enabled a system of privilege for a chosen few? Maybe the complicity of foreign governments and corporate entities enabled a scandal like 1MDB and the house of cards would come crashing down if the system was disrupted? Who knows?
Or maybe not. Economic Affairs Minister Mohamed Azmin Ali (above, far right) claimedthat the recommendations of the CEP were not a matter of national security. "Those are the recommendations, it doesn't involve national security but is purely recommendations by the CEP to the prime minister on how to move forward with all these challenges."
So if the economic minister thinks the report is not a matter of security, then what justifications are there for it to remain classified? In fact chucking this report under the OSA just furthers the narrative that the government has something to hide. Some people think that the system is broken and in need of reform. They believe that what the report contains is the road map for such reforms. Indeed, this was the impression that some members of the CEP gave.
The Pakatan Harapan government supposedly ran on a reform ticket. Zaid Ibrahim, as usual, is right to point to the mendacity of the government in making the report an official secret. While some Harapan political operatives are inquiring as to when this report could be made public, the general impression is that MPs are not clamouring for this report to be made public.
Another important question is why isn’t the opposition interested in finding out the recommendations of the report? Of course, what we are dealing with here are systemic problems that did not happen overnight. Najib Abdul Razak was the logical conclusion of decades of governmental malfeasance and some of the very people who lead the government now are in charge of reforming it.
When the prime minister says that the report is for his eyes only and that the government really does not need to be accountable to the people - which most often is what use of OSA means - this is business as usual which the previous opposition claimed was destroying this country.
What does Anwar Ibrahim, the prime minister-in-waiting, think of this? Does he believe that the report should be made public or does he believe that this report is for the prime minister's eyes only? More importantly, did the relevant ministries get the low down on the report as suggested by Jomo or was the report just filed away under "things to do when we can get to it" folder?
And this is the maddening part of this whole fiasco. Nobody in the government is claiming that the government took the recommendations of the CEP and are putting it in action. Nobody in the government is claiming that the recommendations are a useful guide to chart the course of the reform agenda. All everyone is doing is talking about how the system needs to change but they are more involved in petty political intrigue and blaming everything on the Najib regime.
And you know what? This strategy probably is working. If people think that getting Najib out was the best thing this government did, then the CEP report really amounts to a hill of beans and not worth even protecting as a national secret.
Writer's note - CEP chairperson Daim Zainuddin has since said he supports the idea of releasing the report to the general public. Jomo, too, now agreed that the report should be made public.
S THAYAPARAN is Commander (Rtd) of the Royal Malaysian Navy. A retired barrister-at-law, he is one of the founding members of the National Patriots Association. - Mkini
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