Time to slash number of ministries and ministers

DAP leader says the revised Budget 2015 should consider reducing wastage in government and its many “slush funds”.

KUALA LUMPUR: The revised 2015 Budget should declare war on corruption, incompetence and extravagance to provide an example and leadership of government commitment to austerity, accountability and integrity.

Such a campaign, said DAP elder statesman Lim Kit Siang in a statement, would save the Malaysian government and taxpayers billions of ringgit which would help tide over the looming economic crisis in the wake of the sharp fall in crude oil prices, commodities and the weakening ringgit.

If the revised Budget could mark a serious first time anti-corruption campaign in the country’s history, added Lim, with the jailing of the first “tiger” or “crocodile”, then it would be a path-breaking event.

“The annual reports of the Auditor-General provides reams of examples of government waste, extravagance and ineptitude year after year,” said Lim who is also DAP Parliamentary Leader and Gelang Patah MP.

Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak should set an example by slashing at least 50 per cent, the RM19.1 billion budget for the Prime Minister’s Department, reiterated Lim. “The sum involves gargantuan ‘slush funds’ solely to further the political agenda of the ruling coalition.”

Already, he warned, the Federal Government is bloated with too many Ministries and Ministers as compared to other countries like Australia and India.

“For a start, let Najib slash the number of Ministers and Ministries by at least 10 per cent to mark a new era of government austerity and integrity.”

Despite the greatest investment in an anti-corruption campaign, with the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission developing into a huge bureaucracy but with very little to show in terms of results, the Najib premiership is still far behind the Abdullah and Mahathir premierships in both ranking and score of the annual Transparency International (TI) Corruption Perception Index (CPI), continued Lim.

Malaysia lags seriously behind other countries in the battle against corruption, particularly Indonesia and China, he said. “Malaysia is at risk of being overtaken by these two countries which had occupied the bottom two rungs of the TI CPI 1995 two decades ago.”

China had persevered in its anti-corruption campaign against “tigers and flies” while Indonesia had been quite impressive in catching “crocodiles”, but Malaysia had failed to net and jail a single “tiger or crocodile” during the 34 years in office of Prime Ministers Mahathir Mohamad, Abdullah Ahmad Badawi and Najib.

Lim asked whether the Prime Minister’s Department or the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission had ever conducted a study on why China could net “tigers” and Indonesia catch “crocodiles” while Malaysia has singularly failed to do so, and only able to get “ikan bilis” in the last two decades of the anti-corruption campaign.