PH, show us money you saved from stopping graft practices

Yesterday alone I read of at least another three scandals involving millions of ringgit related to the education ministry, Human Resources Development Fund and Pengurusan Air Pahang Bhd (PAIP).

Before this, we have very frequently heard of mega and mini corruption cases, pilferage, scandals, cheating, bailouts and abuse of power.

I wonder how much the amount of money abused in these scandals would total. If we were to add those yet to be discovered, I think the amount lost could even reach a year’s national budget.

When we won the fight against the communist insurgency, we reaped what we termed as “peace dividends”. Money spent earlier on arms and military operations was then made available for development.

Now that we have got rid of a “kleptocratic government”, we should ask a similar question: where have the dividends of better governance gone to?

We hear almost daily that the new government is faced with the enormous task of cleaning up the mess. But after more than seven months, has the haemorrhage due to corruption, pilferage, cheating and abuse of power stopped? If it has stopped, we need to know where these benefits have gone to.

If, say, previously 20% of the national budget was lost through corruption and inefficiency, the new government ought to be able to get the same output with 20% less.

This would have been a good yardstick to measure the new government’s effectiveness in getting rid of corruption and shifting the benefit to the people.

If we keep saying the previous government was corrupt and infested with scandals, there must be clear benefits if the new government has got rid of these incidents of corrupt practices.

Hence, the pertinent question to ask is where are the benefits of reduced corruption? If the new government needs the same budget to deliver the same programmes, it means there is no difference between the present and previous government.

Here is my take: the new government ought to prove that it is able to deliver more with the same amount of allocations or deliver the same output with a lesser allocation.

It is nice to know that scandals and corruption are being exposed. It is nice to hear the new government is less prone to corruption. Now it is time to show us the money. - FMT