The Bankers Verdict - Be Patient and Be Thankful

I read with interest Dato A Kadir Jasin's recent article entitled Ok for Rocky to be angry. Having lived in Malaysia for 10 years and right now working in the heart of the financial centre of South East Asia, I can share some perspective on the perceptions about crime in Malaysia as viewed by the folks over here.





Firstly, I think the New Paper article was spot on and accurately captures the issue in Malaysia. Many people over here have already decided to skip Malaysia and prefer to go to places like Bangkok for their holidays. Tales of being mugged at car parks and enduring kidnappings in Johor is well known to many.

The bad news is crime in Malaysia is not going away any time soon. It is here to stay and is a product of a many short term decisions that have been taken over the last 20 years. From enabling foreign workers to come in by the millions resulted in many locals being displaced from their jobs and having to settle for meagre salaries. The only viable option was to engage in black market activities, and this has led to a thriving underground industry that penetrates the highest levels of Government.

Now before you accuse me of just throwing out accusations, this is exactly what none other than the ex Inspector General of Police himself said not too long ago.He said the following over here : - "“Looking at the present situation, where there is a lot of illegal activities, do you think there is no links? You can answer yourself,” he told a press conference where he was named patron and advisor to MyWatch yesterday.

He revealed that there are cases where the links are too high up and “nobody dares talk about it”. He cited a case of a high-ranking police officer he did not name who was brought overseas for golfing by a “shady businessman”.

“Sometimes I feel they can even dictate officers, sometimes even spend [money] on police officers,” he said.  "

But because he said something against the Government, the mass media automatically block it. Bloggers buat do-no and the situation continues. Last week we had 2 major shootings, which led to the death of the founder of the Arab Malaysian banking group. This week, there was a couple more shootings. Maybe next week, the assassins will go on holiday and there will be less shootings.

But I think it is grossly unfair to blame this on Dato Seri Najib and his decision to repeal the Emergency Ordinance.  And I think it is unfair to blame this on Pemandu.

Here is the reason why.

Pemandu is staffed with very well qualified consultants who are among the top in their cohort. They are there to fill the policy void that has existed because most policies crafted by Government departments lack the overall critical thought process to take Malaysia forward. To trust the EPU is laughable as under successive DG's it has lacked the vision and insight to make meaningful contribution in a post Mahathirst Malaysia.

Pemandu's strength is its reliance on very indepth analysis before making policy decisions. Many of the circumstances that have led to the explosion in crime i.e. weakness in policing, breakdown of social order, influx of immigration and widespread corruption were there before Pemandu came about. In fact, only after PEMANDU was set up was there any serious efforts to get down to the root of the issue.

So in as far as it takes 10, 20 or even 30 years for the situation to resolve, then the citizens of Malaysia must be patient and be willing to wait for that to happen. It is not as if the situation is very bad, as PEMANDU's Index Crime statistics have pointed towards a downward trend. The police also has stepped up their vigilance According to PEMANDU, index crime has decreased by 10% from January to May this year.

The solution to this takes time. Already PEMANDU has come up with its vision for GTP 2.0 and the area of crime has been given special focus. The NKRA for Crime right up is under ex Police boss, Datuk Wira Ayub Yaccob who will give added dimension in this area.

To highlight GTP 2.0, you can read here about the following areas where PEMANDU has identified as being key in order to tackle crime.

Will this prevent further high profile crime from happening? Will this ensure that you don't get mugged? Will this make you safe?

In the short term, probably not. In the long term, maybe. And that is about as good as answer as you can expect, but be thankful the situation is not as bad as it is Thailand or Indonesia, and do not try and compare yourselves against first world economi.