With due respect to all those critics of Pak Lah on his first anniversary as PM, I disagree with those who say he has not been effective, particularly Martin Jalleh who does not believe that Pak Lah means business on corruption.

Being a back-seat driver is easy, doing the right thing is much harder. It is impossible to totally eradicate corruption. No state is free from it. What impresses me most about Pak Lah is that instead of going after high-profile corruption cases, he has concentrated on the fundamental processes that can lead to a cleaner, more efficient government.

He took control of the Home Ministry and made critical changes at the top level. He did not interfere in specific cases, but instead ensured that processes were put in place to deal with corruption.

It's easy to tell the ACA to go after this or that person, but the truth is that it does not fix the problem in the long run. By making sure that a few cases are well publicised and ensuring that the ACA and police are working on the correct principles, he is the laying the groundwork for fundamental change in the long run.

It's clear the ACA is working on more cases, it's clear the police are doing more. These are real fundamental changes.

What Pak Lah has got to do is to make clear that he expects both the ACA and the police to continue with this process of change. Once systems are in place for accountability in both agencies then everything else will follow.

I urge the PM to look at what is now a famous system, Compstat - a centralised system of data originating in New York, which makes police and law enforcement officials accountable for crimes and problem solving.

By having an open, accountable system such as this, where law officers are driven by facts and figures weekly, eventually corruption will be dealt with.

Similarly, the government should implement systems for other government agencies, particularly with regards to education. The idea is much like performance indexes touted by the GLCs (government-linked companies), which work towards holding people accountable for performance, using as many measures as possible.

Such a system would force politicians to declare their interests in any ventures, and leave them with no excuse not to divulge their personal assets.

This is now standard practise in many parts of the world and in some places, governments even have the right to be intrusive into the personal lives of politicians and top government servants.

The verdict is still out on Pak Lah and he seems to realise that. He seems to want to do the right thing, which is more than I can say for Mahathir. Rather than just criticise him, it would be better for us to be involved in the process of change. We can hold him accountable at the next election, but for now, he must have solutions to what are hard problems.