Lembah Pantai

Kenyataan Ezam

2006-07-16T18:25:00.000-07:00

5 tahun lalu, pada 27 Januari 2001 sekumpulan rakyat yang perihatin dalam isu pembelian saham Malaysian Airline System (MAS) oleh Kementerian Kewangan Malaysia daripada Naluri Berhad telah membuat laporan polis di Balai Polis KLIA.
Laporan polis tersebut mencipta sejarahnya sendiri apabila jumlah pelapor yang membuat laporan pada ketika itu ialah seramai 1336 orang. Jumlah pelapor yang terbesar pernah disaksikan dalam mana - mana laporan polis di negara ini. Antara pelapor tersebut termasuklah barisan pimpinan pemuda Parti keADILan, PAS dan DAP, pertubuhan bukan kerajaan dan individu yang melapor sebagai rakyat Malaysia. Kira kira sebulan selepas itu, pada 2 Mac 2001, saya sendiri dipanggil ke Ibu pejabat Polis Kontijen Selangor berhubung laporan tersebut. Saya diminta memberi keterangan kepada Polis atas alasan untuk memulakan siasatan. Saya telah memberi kerjaama penuh pada pihak polis pada ketika itu dan meminta jaminan keterangan mesti diambil terhadap penama yang terbabit di dalam laporan tersebut iaitu Tan Sri Tajuddin Ramli, (Tun) Dato Seri Dr Mahathir Mohamad dan Tun Daim Dzainudin. Malangnya siasatan tidak dilakukan.Tiada satupun keterangan diambil daripada mereka yang terlibat dan saya pula ditahan di bawah ISA sebulan selepas itu. 5 tahun selepas itu iaitu beberapa hari lalu kita dikejutkan dengan pendedahan Tajuddin, Dan hari ini Malaysia riuh dengan perdebatan dan bualan tentang pendedahan tersebut yang jelas merupakan satu bentuk penyelewangan yang membabitkan wang rakyat dalam jumlah yang amat besar dan membabitkan tokoh pimpinan negara yang pernah dilaporkan pada polis 5 tahun lalu. Episod ini hanya baru bermula dan akan mengundang bermacam persoalan tentang jumlah wang, individu terbabit dan sebagainya. Negara akan didedahkan dengan berbagai pendedahan di mahkamah dan media. Perkara yang perlu kita tumpukan juga adalah bagaimana lemahnya sistem penguatkuasaan kita khususnya Polis dan Jabatan Peguam Negara dalam melindungi kepentingan rakyat. Pendedahan Tajuddin ini membuktikan bahawa laporan polis yang dibuat oleh lebih seribu rakyat 5 tahun yang lalu ada asasnya. Sekiranya tindakan dan siasatan dilakukan terhadap laporan polis tersebut kebenaran dan kepentingan rakyat akan dapat dibela jauh lebih awal. Gerakan Demokrasi dan Anti Korupsi (GERAK) mengajak setiap elemen reformasi dalam masyarakat dan kerajaan untuk mengambil iktibar daripada episod ini untuk suatu usaha yang konkrit dibuat memperbetulkan kepincangan penguatkuasaan dalam Negara yang jelas berlaku didalam episode saham MAS ini. GERAK juga mendesak agar satu penjelasan dibuat oleh pihak Polis di Raja Malaysia dan Jabatan Peguam Negara. Mengapa laporan polis yang dibuat dalam kes yang membabtkan ribuan juta ringgit wang rakyat tidak pernah disiasat dan dilakukan tindakan terhadapnya sebelum ini ? GERAK komited dan mengajak rakyat untuk menangani episod pendedahan penyelewangan ini bukan sahaja dari sudut kes ini sahaja tetapi merangkumi tuntutan untuk dilakukan reformasi dan perubahan dalam sistem negara ini agar akhirnya sistem itu benar - benar adil dan mampu memelihara kepentingan rakyat terbanyak.

Mohamad Ezam Mohd Nor
Ketua Angkatan Muda

Tahniah Anwar

2006-07-16T15:48:00.000-07:00

Keadilan Lembah Pantai mengucapkan setinggi-tinggi tahniah kepada Penasihat.Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim telah dilantik sebagai Pengerusi dan ahli Jakatankuasa Eksekutif Yayasan Masa Depan atau Foundation for the Future. Yayasan ini adalah untuk menggembleng kekuatan di rantau timur tengah kearah kebebasan dan demokrasi. Apa maknanya? Maknanya adalah Anwar Ibrahim adalah seorang pemimpin dunia. Dia boleh turun ke kampung-kampung dan berpidato di depan puluhan ribu rakyat. Tetapi ini tidak bermakna dia pemimpin kampung. Saya mencadangkan generasi muda yang ingin menjadi pemimpin belajar dari beliau bagaimana boleh mendapat sokongan akar umbi tetapi ketika yang sama boleh jadi pemimpin dipersada dunia. Jangan hanya boleh berkokok di kampong tetapi kekok di dunia.

Ramai tak ada kerja

2006-06-26T17:19:00.000-07:00

Dua malam lalu saya turun ke Pantai Dalam dan makan lamb chop di warong seorang aktivis Keadilan. Dia mengatakan kadar pengangguran belia di Lembah Pantai amat tinggi sekali.

Cakap tak serupa bikin

2006-06-22T04:51:00.000-07:00

Agar kita tak lupa....
Malaysia's weak war on graft
By Anil Netto

PENANG, Malaysia - Deputy Premier Abdullah Badawi's call for a corruption-free Malaysia has sparked a debate into the extent of graft in the country.

Abdullah said on Monday that he was concerned over Anti-Corruption Agency (ACA) statistics that showed that more than half the 1,352 people arrested for graft been 1998 and 2002 were civil servants.

"Corruption is a terrible disease that can hurt our competitiveness and image because it brings about a loss of public confidence in the civil service," said Abdullah, due to succeed Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad in October. The deputy premier said a clean image was vital so that the public, the business community and foreign investors would have a positive perception of the civil service.
Malaysia ranked 33rd in Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions index last year. Although this was a slight improvement from the 36th place in 2001, it was well below the 23rd position achieved in 1995.

Abdullah said what was needed was a change in the mindset and attitude of civil servants to be trustworthy and to resist the temptation of "easy money".

His comments came just a couple of days after a young couple on a date at the Kuala Lumpur City Center park complained that they were issued a summons for "indecent behavior" after they had refused to pay off city council enforcement officers. The complaint alleged that the couple were told the summons would involve between RM300 and RM500 (US$79-$132) and the officers then offered to help them settle it at a reduced rate without issuing a summons.

Many Malaysians reading this news report would not have been surprised, to say the least. The incident sparked a torrent of debate and discussion as to what should be done to wipe out corruption in Malaysia.

It is understandable why Abdullah is so keen to clean up Malaysia's act when he assumes power. Competition among Southeast Asian nations and China for foreign direct investment in the region has become intense. As scarce funds flow to North Asia, the need for reforms in countries like Malaysia assumes greater urgency.

But many critics have been quick to point out that by focusing on civil servants, Abdullah risks missing the forest for the woods. The biggest obstacle to improving transparency in Malaysia and wiping out graft is the worrying extent to which politics and business are intertwined. This close nexus between politics and business inevitably results in cronyism and political patronage.

No sooner had Abdullah spoken than questions started being asked about the involvement of his brother, Ibrahim, in a consortium that would buy a Malaysia Airlines (MAS) subsidiary in a favorable deal that was said to guarantee returns over nine years. Ibrahim's company reportedly has a 51 percent stake in the consortium.

The deal prompted an opposition parliamentarian from Parti Islam SeMalaysia (PAS), Husam Musa, to write to Abdullah asking whether the privatization deal would lead to a loss for MAS and the nation. "If the revenue-guarantee clause is true, then the contract is no longer privatization but a profit guarantee by the government to [the purchasing consortium], where family ties exist between the main shareholder of the company and the deputy prime minister," he was reported as saying.

Abdullah's call for an end to corruption has a parallel. Soon after Mahathir became premier in 1981, he unveiled the rallying cry for his new administration in April 1982: "Bersih, Cekap, dan Amanah" (Clean, Efficient and Trustworthy). But by July 1983, that policy was in tatters after investigator Jalil Ibrahim was found dead - strangled and stuffed into a large suitcase in Hong Kong. Jalil had been sent to Hong Kong to investigate massive losses in Bumiputra Malaysia Finance, a subsidiary of state-owned Bank Bumiputra.

From then on, scandal after financial scandal plagued the Mahathir administration, the largest and yet to be resolved involving spectacular unexplained losses totaling RM10 billion at Perwaja Steel, a government-backed heavy-industry project shrouded under allegations of irregularities.

One of the biggest stumbling blocks in the battle against corruption is that the ACA is hardly independent, reporting as it does to the Prime Minister's Department. This major structural flaw makes in almost impossible for the agency to investigate high-level corruption involving ministers and senior officials without clearance from the very top. Where such cases are actually investigated, the probe can take years to be completed, often with a finding of insufficient evidence. Many have called for the ACA to be converted into an independent commission against corruption, accountable to an independent authority.

It doesn't help that the ruling-coalition parties have extensive business interests either directly or via proxies. Political patronage and privatization have been abused to consolidate politically linked businesspeople and firms. What's more, affirmative-action policies favoring the economically disadvantaged Malays and other indigenous groups have been abused to assist well-connected officials, ministers and businesspeople. This would include the lack of open tenders for infrastructure projects and the special allocation of shares and licenses to those who are not exactly disadvantaged.

Critics have pointed out that the battle against corruption should start from the top through "leadership by example" - another Mahathir administration slogan that failed to inspire. Unless Abdullah has the political will to tackle the structural and deeply rooted systemic problem of graft, few critics expect his campaign against corruption to amount to much.

(Copyright 2003 Asia Times Online Co, Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact content@atimes.com for information on our sales and syndication policies.)

Keputusan lalu

2006-06-22T04:02:00.000-07:00

Keputusan piliharaya 2004 bagi kawasan Parlimen Lembah Pantai.
Gambar: Suatu ketika dahulu di Pantai Dalam.

Hantu-hantu di Lembah Pantai

2006-06-20T20:18:00.000-07:00

Findings from a study indicate strong possibility of ‘phantom voters’ in the electoral roll as at September 2003, according to election watchdog Malaysians for Free and Fair Elections (Mafrel) which commissioned the check.
The study, conducted in February, covered three parliamentary constituencies - Lembah Pantai in Kuala Lumpur, Tanah Merah in Kelantan and Gombak in Selangor - with a random sampling of 1,000 registered voters in each.
However, the findings only took into account ‘accepted data’ from 796 voters in Lembah Pantai, 790 in Tanah Merah and 965 in Gombak.
Based on this, the highest number of discrepancies were recorded in Lembah Pantai, leading Mafrel to contend that 73.12 percent of the registered voters are probably ‘phantoms’. The figure in Tanah Merah was put at 20 percent and in Gombak at 50 percent.
Two other categories of flaws covered ‘phantom addresses’ and ‘roll inaccuracies’ (incomplete addresses of voters whose names appear in the roll).
Even taking into account an error margin of plus or minus 3.1 percent, the electoral roll contain "fatal defects and irregularities", claimed Mafrel chairperson Abdul Malek Hussin at a press conference in Petaling Jaya today.
He said the study was conducted by 75 individuals who were trained and deployed to conduct ground observation on the randomly generated voter lists. Each researcher was given a list of 40 voters.
He acknowledged that Mafrel was unable to base its findings on the very latest electoral roll - for the period ending Dec 31, 2003 - since the EC itself had failed to make this available, even after two months of its completion. (The list was gazetted last Tuesday, according to press reports.)

Jangan galas beban orang lain

2006-06-20T17:26:00.000-07:00

Dalam Anwar Ibrahim 3.0 Penasihat Keadilan itu menyebut tentang kerjasama dengan parti-parti pembangkang. Kita boleh setuju sekiranya sekadar persefahaman pilihanraya seperti yang berlaku di Sarawak. Usaha untuk menghidupkan semula Barisan Alternatif perlu ditinggalkan. Seperti yang dicadangkan oleh bahagian Parit Sulong, Keadilan boleh bersendiri. Dan Keadilan jangan menggalas beban orang lain iaitu Negara Islam Pas dan agenda khusus DAP.

Azmin dijangkit virus

2006-06-20T15:53:00.000-07:00

Naib Presiden Keadilan Azmin Ali sudah dijangkiti virus blog. Mari kita tengok apa dia tulis dalam blog dia.

Kerusi paling panas

2006-06-20T01:17:00.000-07:00

Lembah Pantai bakal menjadi kerusi parlimen paling panas dalam pilihanraya umum yang akan datang. Kenapa? Ikuti terus. Tabir misteri ini akan diselak, sedikit, demi sedikit......