I fully support the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission advisory board chairperson Tunku Aziz Tunku Ibrahim’s urging that the government reopen past cases of “financial scams” ( NST , May 30).

Although he highlighted only the Bank Negara forex debacle, there are others which are no less scandalous which should be revisited including  the Maminco, Perwaja, the Bakun Dam, the MAS bailout and the Port Klang Free Trade Zone (PKFZ),  the implementation of Mega projects and other public sector projects that were given out on ‘negotiated tenders’ during the peak of the privatisation era.

All these episodes had been tainted with some scandals of sorts like the ‘cost-padding’, ‘tender leakages’ for projects and the emergence of ‘cronyism’ and ‘nepotism’.

They became the talk of the town during those days and civil servants who had been used to doing things according to established rules and procedures became very gullible on the new mode of doing things under Malaysia Inc, especially regarding tender award and evaluation, with all sorts of grapevine stories coming out from them. Under the Whistleblower Protection Act, there are people ready to become witnesses if these cases are reopened.

If we talk of public money that had been plundered or absconded, these episodes involved billions and billions of ringgit dwarfing the IMDB financial debacle by comparison. But let us be clear here that this does not mean we condone such doings and that two wrongs cannot make a right. In each and every one of these cases, we need to get into the bottom of it all without fear or favour and the perpetrators nabbed and be brought to justice.

The sad fact is that in all these past sagas no one had been apprehended despite all the public noise. Whatever court actions had been taken, they were reduced to nothing more than an exercise in futility or much ado about nothing. In the end it was very much business as usual.

Now if we can revisit these controversial episodes once more in a more resolute and transparent manner, we can imagine the impact that will have on the integrity, transparency and accountability of the power that be and the country as a whole.

This ‘national cleaning-up’ will definitely bring a fresh and new era of national hope and feeling to the people that can generate solidarity and unity to our multiracial country which had been plagued for such a long time with corruption and divisive elements. Hence apprehending the perpetrators and bringing them to justice is an imperative for any responsible government.

There is no time barred for these criminal acts. And what is even more important is to recover the billions of public money that had been squandered and to put them back to the national coffers for the socio-economic development of the rakyat which precisely was what had been done by our neighbours. If need be we should go for a national referendum for this revisit and let the people give their verdict. I have no doubt that the result will be  a resounding “YES”.