Whichever way you look at it the 1MDB – whether it is going to sink, stay adrift for a longer indefinite period or rise and sail the high waves of objections and allegations and succeed as a miracle investment of the century, there are two key lessons for Malaysia.
The learning opportunity that should not be squandered or muffled and buried or worse, taken for granted is that governments – and especially elected politicians in power, should not dabble in business.
They have no business to do business except the business of governing a nation.
Their focus and priority must always be operating as the vanguards of national welfare, be it politics, economics, social or the environmental wellbeing of Malaysia.
There are enough engines of growth in the country that can venture into businesses and ensure healthy returns on investment. Privatization is meaningless if private enterprise is also owner-managed by political entities and politically-inherited family dynasties.
The political leaders’ job is to govern. Think policy. Walk the talk of good governance. Work hard at peace, democracy and justice. Their vocation must uphold the highest standards of ethics.
The second lesson is, the government of the day must make immediate corrective and long term effort to ensure that a prime minister of the country does not also wear the hat of Finance Minister. This is to ensure best practice standards in the management of public funds and government spending.
Much of the current prime minister of Malaysia’s woes somehow stems from the fact that he also has his fingers, palms and hands in the honey jar of the nation. That puts him in an extremely vulnerable position besides making him believe that he is made gullible.
Likewise, as a prime minister heading national or State investment arms adds to his perils and also compromises the country’s ability to fight potential graft at an arm’s length. It makes the leader of a nation squat like a clay duck on the wrong side of the fence when things go wrong.
When we refuse or fail to learn these two precious lessons, it simply means that the government’s mantra of achieving its ends by any means will one day crash. And when that mega-crash (through cascades of mini-crashes) happens, a country can be torpedoed into the backwaters, leaving the populace to suffer for generations.
Meanwhile, citizens too have to learn from this 1MDB scandal of the centurty. They must either get their leaders to learn fast these two lessons and stick to them like leeches or they must initiative change in the best interest of nation-building.
Either way, the price has to be paid. Now Malaysians must choose before they are left with the ultimate and only choice of a failed nation. - MAILBAG
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