By Prof Dr Suresh Govind

Decades of hard toil, thousands of miles and millions of lives were involved in creating one of the wonders of the world, The Great Wall of China. Its purpose was to deter and prevent the onslaught of enemies that continuously attacked the kingdom. This marvellous structure was a symbol of the nation’s resilience, a source of pride and more importantly a significant security and safety provider to her people. The ability for anyone outside to penetrate was next to impossible until one day the conscience in one of the soldiers who was assigned to protect the wall was compromised due to various reasons. He opened the gates for the enemies to enter.

An important reminder that the legacies we are attempting to build can be destroyed even if one small shred is torn from the fabric of the nation’s integrity. Furthermore, the visible evidence of reports of corruption globally and nationally is revealing that our conscience is increasingly becoming compromised.

Even a person with a well-sculptured, muscular body can become vulnerable to the invading micro-organisms when one’s immunity becomes compromised. Our conscience is our built-in immunity, which confers the ability to resist the tendency to be corrupted, a much-needed quality to preserve the present collective wealth of experience and resources since our independence.

CPI reflects views of experts

The evidence of our integrity being compromised is reflected in the scores of the Corruption Perception Index (ÇPI). Since its inception in 1995, the CPI has become the leading global indicator of public sector corruption which incorporates scores from 180 countries and territories based on perceptions of public sector corruption. The data is used from 13 external sources, including the World Bank, World Economic Forum, private risk and consulting companies, think tanks and others. The scores reflect the views of experts and business people.

Some of the top countries scoring more than 80 in previous CPI assessments have not been spared from reports of corruption scandals involving corporate and political leaders. On the local front, Malaysia has not been spared either, what with sporadic reports of scandals, none of which can match the internationally notorious 1MDB.

The announcement by Transparency International on Jan 25, 2022, showed our nation slipping from the 51st position out of 180 countries in 2019 to the recent 62nd position in 2022. Eighty-six per cent of the other countries were reported to have little or no progress in the last 10 years, with an appalling CPI global average remaining unchanged at 43 for the 10th year in a row, with two-thirds of countries scoring below 50.

This continued decline in the CPI in our country is a wakeup call to urgently address this issue on how to restore our innate resilience for corruption. The recent controversy surrounding the case of (Tan Sri) Azam Baki (chief commissioner of the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission – MACC), which invited mostly the youth to take to the streets to protest, is again a clear signal that future inheritors of our legacies have poor tolerance to this compromised conscience.

Strengthening resilience

How can we make this fort of resilience stronger? It is only when we pay attention to the selection process to all the positions of power, especially in organisations that we have entrusted to preserve the integrity of the nation. Stringent selection criteria without any political influence or any form of nepotism and cronyism should be in place. There is a real need to revisit the selection processes involving the respective stakeholders. Critical agencies demand more serious stringent selection criteria for their board members. In fact, those appointees should be retirees from senior positions of the corporate and public sectors, including retired senior professors. Such respectable and distinguished persons who are unbiased and apolitical with long-standing impeccable and flawless service become a justifiable reason to be called back for this ‘National Service’ type of appointments. The realisation that such seats of power are conferred only to protect the nation’s well-being is really the basis of creating a strong, formidable and impenetrable wall of never compromising integrity.

The institution that should be empowered with greater resources and power should be the Malaysian Institute of Integrity (IIM) which was established on March 4, 2004. Its objective, from its website, is to ensure that every public and private institution in the country implements initiatives aimed at overcoming governance, integrity and corruption issues. This institution’s role can be likened to our nation’s immune system where proper empowerment and greater vigilance with proper regulation can be made to protect the integrity of the nation.

The IIM should work with the Ministry of Education to ensure that the value of integrity becomes part of the curriculum which eventually would become an integral part of the child’s life in the future. Punctuality, not copying from others during exams, abiding by the laws and regulation of the school, being honest and transparent are all vaccination exercises to boost this innate immunity. These children, who eventually might deserve the opportunity to sit on seats of power in the future, would shake their head in disapproval when faced with temptations.

Every organisation must have a competent Chief Integrity Officer (CIO) whose formal training and certification by IIM must be the eyes and ears to ensure that integrity never gets compromised in the organisation that they are employed in. Thus integrity in every process of procurement, succession planning, leadership decisions and other related matters must never be compromised. The CIO’s main task should be to ensure that a pervasive culture of integrity is instilled in every member of the organisation. This is being carried out now in some organisations but perhaps their role deserves more prominence and seriousness.

If a COVID-19 virus invades a body, the first line of defence, are the immune cells which are independently programmed to act on their own for self-preservation. Organisations that are assigned to protect the integrity of the nation, such as the MACC and IIM, should be made independent and report to Parliament so that they, like the immune cells, can act diligently, promptly and accurately to safeguard the interest of both the government and the people.

Corruption is one element that every individual regardless of race and religion will unite against.

It was Daniel Erikson, CEO of Transparency International, who said: “In authoritarian contexts where control over government, business and the media rests with a few, social movements remain the last check on power. It is the power held by teachers, shopkeepers, students and ordinary people from all walks of life that will ultimately deliver accountability.”

Every individual should be accountable to place his brick of integrity to strengthen the wall of resilience. Malaysia still possesses the potential to climb to the top in the CPI. We have to!

-- BERNAMA

Prof Dr Suresh Govind is the Chairman of the Board of Trustees for Yayasan Perpaduan Malaysia and a Fellow of the Academy of Science.