I wish to respond to Keruah Usit’s article, ‘Learn from TI-M’s decline’.

Allow me to say this that Keruah has been largely misled in the way he looked at the Transparency International-Malaysia (TI-M) fiasco with its past secretary-general, Josie Fernandez.

As I have written in the past, Josie should not view herself as indispensable to any organisation that she represents; in fact, no one is indispensable!

When I look at TI-M’s past newsletters that were produced by Ms Fernandez, I cannot help but notice that she appeared in nearly every page of the newsletter. This is even worse than Rosmah Mansor, wife of Najib Abdul Razak, who had once decreed that she should appear at least once daily in every mainstream media.

In one of the articles where Fernandez met the Taiwanese president, Ma Ying-jeou, the caption by the editor, Josie Fernandez, read, “President Ma greets TI-M secretary-general Josie M Fernandez.” Under normal circumstances, it is the person of lesser importance who should be greeting the president himself.

A number of mistakes

In Keruah’s article, it is again said that Josie Fernandez’s email address was ‘hacked’ by the TI-M committee. This is sheer ignorance on the part of Keruah Usit. An official email does not need to be hacked. Tomorrow, if Keruah Usit is no longer the president of ABC Corporation, the successor will remove him from having access to the [email protected].

The email account does not have to be hacked, only the password to be overridden; after all, Josie Fernandez was using the TI-M’s secretary-general email account for her correspondence, there should not be any personal emails in her correspondence using the official email.

Keruah Usit said that the Selangor Registrar of Societies (ROS) has affirmed that Dr KM Loi is now the secretary-general, but he has failed to know what transpired before this. After the voting was done within the exco upon the departure of Paul Low, Fernandez lost to Akhbar Satar by 1-6. This means that Fernandez has failed in her bid to take on the president’s post. It also means that Fernandez does not enjoy the confidence of her fellow committee members.

I am told that only one person voted for her as president, and the person happens to be Dr KM Loi, who was then voted as secretary-general since Fernandez had opted out as secretary-general during the same meeting.

The TI-M debacle only started when Fernandez said she had not resigned from the post as secretary-general after she had gone on record seven times saying that she had decided to quit as secretary-general. Despite efforts being made to persuade her to keep the position, she was adamant that she would quit.

For that reason, the exco had to decide on who would take on the new office as secretary-general, and Dr KM Loi, who had served as secretary-general in 2009-10, found himself once again having to hold the post.

Fernandez, if she is worth her salt, should be a woman of honour to keep her word. If she had adamantly said she would resign, not once but seven times (go and read the transcription), she should just leave the organisation instead of creating further debacles and engaging the Registrar of Societies to reinstate her in the position!

Fernandez should also not create her own email address (sec-gen.TIM) and refer herself as the secretary-general, especially since she has already resigned as secretary-general.

Now, on the claim that TI-M has ‘confiscated’ the laptop used by one of the staff members, as made by Keruah Usit, let me tell you that in any organisation, if the laptop is used by a staff member, especially if it is owned by the organisation, there is no reason why the laptop should be kept by the staff member, especially when some forensic investigation is being carried out.

Fernandez should just leave TI-M peacefully

I have written in the past that Fernandez should just leave TI-M peacefully. No one is indispensable. After all, as secretary-general of an organisation like TI-M, if she no longer has faith in the organisation, she should just go somewhere else or set up her own NGO to fight corruption.

The country needs more NGOs to apply pressure on the existing government which has outlived its hospitality for over half a century. It’s time for NGOs like TI-M to rise to the occasion, and continue to lobby against corruption in this country. Whatever accusations are hurled by people like Josie Fernandez, let them be put to rest. TI-M has an important role to play in fighting against corruption.

The public should also view Paul Low’s decision to take up the offer as a minister in the Prime Minister’s department as his own, rather than that of TI-M. In my opinion, Paul Low’s decision to join Najib’s administration is bound to fail in his fight against corruption, but only time can tell.

Najib also appears to be telling the whole world that he is using Paul Low for his window-dressing. We all know that Low alone cannot fight corruption within a regime that is already corrupted.

The last thing that should happen is for members of the public to ‘kill’ Transparency International-Malaysia. Efforts must be made by people like Keruah, for example, to join the fight against corruption. Keruah and even Fernandez should set up their own NGOs and fight against corruption, not kill TI-M, for heaven’s sake.

Have some common sense, when you are trying to defend an individual against an organisation that is committed to push for the anti-corruption agenda, not only in Malaysia but worldwide.