What a great business idea from the former Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) deputy chief commissioner Zakaria Jaffar who is now chairperson of the Yayasan Anti-Rasuah Malaysia (Malaysian Anti-Corruption Foundation or YARM).

I don’t think he is so naive as to believe that looking in the mirror with messages such as ‘Did you help prevent a corrupt practice today’ or some other anti-corruption messages, will change devils into angels.

The timing of his brainwave is very significant. It came only after retirement and after becoming chairperson of the YARM.

High-ranking government servants who retire also have to ‘cari makan’. So if they dream up an idea while in service which can be turned into a gold mine, why let someone else benefit from it? Anyway, the idea is their intellectual property, and they have a copyright to it.

So retire, get into some respectable position, and then throw the idea to the authorities.

If Zakaria’s idea is picked up by someone, e.g. by an MP who then promotes it in Parliament, it is more likely than not to get approval for implementation (remember the suggestion to have a law to protect teachers made during the recent by-elections campaign?) No sooner was this suggestion made, the ministry said it would look into it!

Remember another ‘yayasan’ that was given the exclusive right to sell ‘Patriot’ number plates for its own coffers? Money made from the selling of number plates is the property of the government. On what basis did the government give that money to the Yayasan Patriot?

This time a turnkey contract could be given for the supply of hundreds of thousands of ‘anti-corruption message mirrors’ at prices befitting these magic mirrors. Whether or not they reduce corruption is immaterial. After all millions spent on other campaigns have gone down the drain, e.g. the millions spent on the ‘tak nak’ anti-smoking campaign that did nothing to reduce the number of smokers.

I wonder who will get the contract to supply the magic mirrors?