We keep reading news like this – MACC raided yet another office and carted away hundreds of files; Immigration Department raided yet another worksite and arrested hundreds of illegal workers; and the police raided another gambling/drug syndicate premise and found drugs and gambling items worth millions of ringgit.
Do we find all this strange and a little too late in the day?
Massive corruption did not happen overnight, but why are we thinking this problem can be solved by one single scoop of “the documents” of those involved? Illegal workers are everywhere, how can periodic raids on worksites help? Why are “drug labs” and “gambling establishments” allowed to go on unnoticed before the police raid them?
Where is the daily monitoring, control and vigilance?
Seriously, when a CEO of a company and a chairman of the board can trade accusations against each other on corruption and other malfeasance, it is obviously too late. Did they have any mechanism put in place to ensure good governance to begin with? What about MACC, had they not heard of anything improper and “untoward” happening in that organisation before they raided the company’s HQ and carted away hundreds of files?
The same goes with foreign workers. Have we not lost control over them? Would periodic raids help to solve our problems? We have heard of so many new systems put in place to register, control and regulate foreign workers, but does anyone know which system is working today?
Drug and gambling syndicates too are having a field day. If they can attract customers and buyers of their illegal trades, they must be known to many. Why have they largely gone unnoticed until the police raid them? What happens to the undercover and espionage operations of the police force?
I may be naïve, but to me, massive corruption, illegal workers, and crime syndicates everywhere should not be the “new normal”. If the authorities have missed them, these should be exceptions rather than the general rule.
But looking at our country today, the situation seems to be the reverse. It is “normal” for them to be corrupt, to hire and fire undocumented workers, and to indulge in illegal and clandestine trades. Occasionally some of them may get caught, but these are exceptions, not the general rule.
The “raiding parties” usually come too late and they can’t really solve our problems. What we need is coherent monitoring and an effective mechanism so that problems can be identified and resolved early.
By the time the MACC carts away the files, I think hundreds of millions may probably have gone, either stolen or wasted. The same goes with the Immigration raiding worksites and police raiding gambling and drug syndicates. The raids seem to suggest that the authorities have lost control over the situation. What can one additional raid do when we have inadvertently and unwittingly allowed so many of them to exist and thrive?
T K Chua is an FMT reader.
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