New PM should not make himself finance minister

 

Ibrahim M Ahmad

The appointment of Anwar Ibrahim as the nation’s 10th prime minister presents him the opportunity to right many of the recent wrongs which led to the downfall of Najib Razak’s Barisan Nasional government in 2018.

Political manoeuvring over the last four years, beginning with the Sheraton Move in March 2020, blighted the outcome of the 14th general election and brushed aside the rakyat’s mandate.

That mandate originated from harsh lessons Malaysia learnt by allowing one man to wield overarching authority and power over all aspects of government.

Such control allowed him to put his personal and private interests over and above those of the government.

A prime minister who also has control of the treasury effectively has unguarded access to the till and is more than likely at some point or other to use it for personal gain.

That is the harsh lesson that Malaysians learnt from the 1MDB saga, first from exposes in the media and later by facts proved in court during Najib’s SRC International corruption case.

That case exposed how Najib used his position as prime minister to make himself adviser emeritus to 1MDB. Then flexing his powers as finance minister, he used his position to take dominion over SRC International’s property.

He then intervened to secure loan approvals, most notably a RM4 billion loan from KWAP – another entity within the finance ministry’s control.

He also used the might of his combined powers as prime minister and finance minister to procure the issuance of government guarantees, and the transfer of ownership of SRC from 1MDB to the finance ministry.

He then cleared the path for himself by directing his second finance minister not to interfere in SRC matters and told 1MDB officers to ignore existing standard operating procedures and protocols and instead report directly to him.

He also took a commanding role in the appointment of the directors of the company, exercised total control over resolutions passed, and personally signed off on all transactions.

In doing so, he got himself entangled in the most elaborate conflict of interests.

When the matter became public knowledge, he used his prime ministerial power to purge the country’s top officials, including his deputy prime minister, the second finance minister, and the attorney-general.

Whatever good intentions he may have had when he assumed both positions were ultimately set aside by the convenient fact that he had too much access to government machinery.

Ultimately, it led to the plunder of the nation’s riches, in the process staining our beloved country with the unwanted tag of kleptocracy capital of the world.

That is not what the real Malaysia was known for or wants to be.

We were once a proud nation made up of principled government institutions that observed to the letter time-honoured democratic principles derived from the Westminster model of government which we inherited.

When those principles were whittled away, the rakyat overthrew the sitting government in 2018 and gave the victorious Pakatan Harapan government the mandate to restore those principles of good governance to public life.

That is the same mandate which the present unity government must adhere to.

Anwar Ibrahim’s government must demonstrate clearly and unequivocally that it understands those principles from the get-go and will apply them throughout its term of office.

That must begin with the prime minister not making himself finance minister.

No other democracy in the world allows its prime minister to control the treasury. Malaysia should be no different. - FMT

Ibrahim M Ahmad is an FMT reader.

The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of MMKtT.