I like what Tunku Abdul Aziz Ibrahim, president of anti-corruption watchdog Transparency International Malaysia, said of the National Integrity Plan: "The document is full of platitudes and lofty ideals, which are in themselves good ... but how are they going to implement it?

"In dealing with corruption, one should know where the problems are," he said.

According to the Longmans dictionary, 'platitudes' refer to statements that have been made many times before and are neither interesting nor clever.

Let's try to ascertain why certain statements are neither interesting or clever, and where the root problems of corruption may lie.

Corruption involves the abuse of public office for direct or indirect personal gain with the expression 'indirect personal gain' inclusive of benefits that someone secures improperly for his/her relatives friends, cronies or organisations (e.g., government agency, political party or company).

Under what conditions is an official most likely to be corrupt as defined above?

When one thinks that the public office or civil service which controls levers of powers is the best vantage point for private toll collection;

That it is legitimate to accept gratification from the private sector that knows how to make the money since those in public sector do not know how due to historical or cultural reasons;

That the ultimate of power and dominance is for an opportunity to collect toll and subsidies from those who have to work because the latter do not mind exerting strenuously for money and are in any event not in vantage position to collect from others who so customarily exert;

When there is a proliferation of regulations for official control, which depend on discretionary powers, rather than objective and publicly articulated criteria. These consents and approvals - one key example is the one for transfer or charge of a property - provide every official who has anything to do with the process of such approval an opportunity to delay and to be offered a bribe for removal of the obstacle of delay;

When leaders at the apex of political and governmental power set a poor example to down line by awarding parcels of mega-projects based on escalated costs and without proper feasibility evaluation to obscure contractors parachuted into the arena with no track record and are perceived by the envious rest as proxies and nominees;

When there is always an excuse and a kind of legitimacy that gratification received is supposedly for a 'higher cause' of putting the political party in funds for maintenance of power or for election. This avenue of political contributions affords the emissaries and go-betweens to take a further cut for their private gain;

When power to dispense reward is associated with quid-pro-quo opportunity to get rich from recipients thus rewarded, this mind set spreads readily from public to private spheres in the board rooms of corporations and banks.

When it would pay to wear the mask of public probity and champion public causes as a camouflage for private concerns and personal gain, the hypocrisy of which has become a norm than an exception.

Whilst that may forge mind set of the taker, what about the giver without whom there can be no tango?

The giver is basically resigned to the unchangeability of the mindset of those in control to whom he has to turn to for approvals, for business or for any thing that he has to do for the running of his affairs.

Whether it is for avoidance of inconvenience or for expedience or for securing an advantage over competitors, he feels he has to pay. Whilst it is true that he is aggravating the malaise that eats the soul of society, yet personal salvation is more immediate and important - it is pointless to be a martyr.

When there is neither a sense of security nor a stake in the changeability of a state of affairs, people turn to personal rather than collective redemption.

One has therefore has to ask and examine with honesty whether it is true or not that many of the ideologies and policies in place in Malaysia are conducive to foster, indeed, inculcate and internalise the giver's and taker's frame of mind to participate in corruption in all faces and form.

It is not true that the culture of materialism per se is the sole culprit of a corrupt mindset though it certainly provides an impetus when other conducive conditions are prevailing.

Switzerland and Singapore are rich societies that have no less a reverence for the Money God but do we hear that they are enmeshed in a web of seamless graft?

What is the cornerstone of the national ideologies of these countries relating to the distribution of rewards and cost for its members?

When does a person deserve reward and privilege - aren't they for merit and excellence? Which necessarily raises the corollary question that if reward was not based on merit and excellence, what else ought it to be based on if not privilege of birthright, power connections and official positions that can be so easily cascade down a slippery slope to graft?

Graft is such an entrenched interest and (dare I say norm?) that it will take more than the rhetoric of 'Malaysia Boleh' to uproot

In conclusion, unless there is a political will to fundamentally restructure society by the revision of the very ideologies and policies that conduce towards the mindsets of giver and taker, and to risk paying the political price of that, all expressions and exhortations of ideals must necessarily remain platitudinous and deserving of skepticism.

If ideologies and policies cannot be compromised or abridged, then the other practical way of appearing clean is to redefine what is graft and what is not by taking away certain areas traditionally considered as graft and making them now permissible and legal, and subjecting them to regulation.