Graft denials becoming a trend: Ex-DPM
Published on: Tuesday, May 03, 2016
CHIANG MAI: Former Malaysian Deputy Prime Minister Tun Dato' Musa Hitam said the world is faced with an integrity crisis of sorts in many fields. Giving a keynote address on 'Integrity as a Guiding Principle to Professionalism' at the Plenary Session after the opening ceremony of the 25th Rotary District 3310 Conference in Chiang Mai, he said: "We do not have to look too far for evidence. In the education industry, retractions in academic journals have reached a record high in recent years. In 2015, about 50 scientific papers were recalled upon because of fabricated and fake peer reviews.
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"Following this discovery, the Committee on Publication Ethics, a multidisciplinary group that includes more than 9,000 journal editors, released a statement warning that there was a much broader potential problem."The statement said 'The Committee has become aware of the systematic and inappropriate attempts to manipulate the peer review processes of several journals across different publishers'," he told the delegates. Musa, who is the current Chairman of Sime Darby Foundation, then cited sports where millions of football fans were left devastated recently over corruption allegations surrounding FIFA's Presidential election and the selection of host countries for the 2018 and 2022 World Cup. "Late last year, after a few years of investigation, FIFA has taken the action to suspend the top two figures in the leadership for eight years. Despite this development, FIFA's battle on corruption will remain challenging for many years to come," he said.
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He said it is hard not to mention the 2008 World Economic Crisis, which serves as a wake-up call for the entire humanity on how severely seared or burnt out our collective conscience is. This financial crisis, Musa said, broke out as a result of a complex interplay of questionable policies and practices in the financial world.
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"This crisis also goes to show us how decisions made by a tight group of privileged few prioritising their own big wins within Wall Street can affect millions of people across the globe, robbing them of their jobs, stability and happiness." Quoting a report from global financial integrity entitled "Illicit Financial Flows From Developing Countries2004-2013", he said, developing and emerging economies lost YS$7.8 trillion in illicit financial flows from 2004 through 2013, with illicit outflows increasing at an average rate of 6.5pc per year - nearly twice as fast as global gross domestic product (GDP) and more than most nations' GDP growth.From his observation, integrity issues are also disappointedly prevalent among governments, whose roles are supposed to ensure the well-being of their peoples. Turning to his experience, Musa said: "In my long, long life, I have been through many passages, mostly beautiful, but some were rough and one or two really rough and tough. In going through my life, I thought I have seen it all, especially in government and politics. I thought that nothing could surprise me."However, the development of public affairs around the world as well as my home country has completely baffled me." He went on to say that corruption denials are becoming a common code of behaviour among government officials and this is being unapologetically demonstrated among the leaderships."In their desperate process to cling to power, they have completely forgotten the words 'Service to the People'. Not only that, worse the citizens are being suppressed and their rights rejected."The point I wish to make here is that the integrity crisis is more real than we thought. It has affected us in more and deeper ways than we realised. Therefore, it is important that we take a close look at the true meaning of integrity and examine how far we, as individuals, as one group, as one organisation and as one international community, have deviated from this simple virtue," he asserted. Musa said these recent examples show how an oversight in ethics by a small group of people can conjure up damage so shattering that claims thousands of jobs and even lives. In his conclusion, he said we must mobilise more talents and expertise to spearhead the effort to inculcate integrity within the society by riding on the waves of technology and the younger, less corrupted generation.Stay up-to-date by following Daily Express’s Telegram channel.
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