COMMENT It is disappointing to read Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Paul Low telling us that the National Consultative Committee on Political Funding (JKNMPP), which he currently chairs, will not be investigating the RM2.6 billion deposited into the private bank accounts of Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak.

In the first place, none of us is expecting the JKNMPP to be set up like a royal commission of inquiry (RCI) or become another agency endowed with investigative powers.

If anything, the public think that the JKNMPP is nothing but another whitewashing act by the minister in charge of integrity, especially when Najib is still the sitting prime minister.

For this reason, both the opposition and the Bar Council have expressed their disinterest in participating in the council.

Instead, we read of Transparency International-Malaysia (TI-M), where Low was previously its president, urging newly-minted attorney-general Mohamed Apandi Ali not to head the team probing the 1MDB scandal.

Low should understand that before any new policy can be effectively put in place, the root of corruption has first to be dealt with.

To go through the exercise of drafting the policy, without first addressing the RM2.6 billion that was funnelled into Najib’s private accounts, would be a sheer waste of time unless there is political will to stop the rot.

Low cannot later blame the opposition or other non-governmental agencies for giving him the cold shoulder. He simply does not appear to be listening to the voice of the people, or even to his own voice of conscience.

How can a new policy regulate political funding unless it is turned into a law? And how can it control Umno’s foreign political funding when the same person who signed Low’s TI-M integrity pledge had said during his own ceramah in the lead-up to the last general election that no political funds should be channelled into personal accounts and yet, after being caught with his pants down, continued to deny it?

None of the cabinet ministers, including Low, was willing to tell the emperor that he was already ‘naked’ in the eyes of the people. Instead, they praised his most wonderful gown.

Time for Low to resign

Low is right in pointing out that JKNMPP does not hold investigative powers, unlike the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Agency (MACC) and the police. However, this is not what the public expected of Low to do.

It is also not that the people’s expectations are too high, but that Low had earlier said he would defend the MACC. But, till now, Low has not been able to negotiate and demand that the MACC leads the new task force that was set up recently by Apandi, despite the fact that there might be elements of corruption in the money trail.

At the same time, Low has not even made his stand known to remove Apandi ( photo ) from heading the probe team, since the Apandi was recently appointed to the task by the prime minister himself. A senior lawyer, SN Nair, has also said that Apandi’s role as attorney-general should be independent of the probe team, since his role is merely as a legal adviser.

People are simply not convinced that, after the previous probe team was disbanded and after Abdul Gani Patail was also removed by Najib (purportedly over the leak of a charge sheet against Najib himself), Apandi would be non-partisan in carrying out the investigation.

Low failed to put his foot down on a number of incidents when the MACC was being ‘attacked’ by the other agencies over the past one month, despite saying that he could defend the MACC.

The latest involves the sudden termination of Jessica Gurmeet Kaur’s contract, which Apandi claimed to be a matter of termination of contract. However, the nation is waiting to hear from Jessica her version of the story, in her so-called ‘explosive’ affidavit .

Low is also quick to blame the people who “want to see transparency and zero corruption immediately after his appointment in charge of graft, transparency and human rights”.

I wish to point out that under the present circumstances, most people’s expectations are not unrealistic. No one is expecting to see zero corruption - but at least some decency and less whitewashing.

People like me have been trying to tell Low that he is swimming like a lame penguin in an ocean filled with sharks, and there is time for him to still turn around and swim back to the shore with the others in his own colony.

Any attempt to clean up the political mess that we are in now, or the corruption that has become very much of a Malaysian culture, has to begin with the top and if the most senior person in the current administration is caught in a major scandal, there is no way that Low can perform his duties.

Instead of paying more lip-service and doing the boot-licking, Low should just resign from the cabinet out of protest to regain his honour. It takes a man of great honour to stand up, speak up and be counted among the country’s statesmen.

It had happened to P Waythamoorthy, who was appointed to the post of deputy minister. Within less than a year, after realising that he was not getting anywhere, the former Hindraf leader decided to throw in the towel.

Another man who is more honourable than Low and the other senators is former de facto law minister Zaid Ibrahim, who was at least able to draw the line between black and white. Some may say that Zaid has his own baggage from the past, but at least, he has shown himself to be a man of principle.

The disappointing thing about Low, when he said that the public had too high expectations of him, is that despite knowing that he is hitting his head against the wall, he continues to defend the indefensible.

Low would be a most disappointed man if he thought that he could change the culture without first changing the top person. After the expose by The Wall Street Journal, Najib has denied and has been defended by his own cabinet. Then, when the evidence was too overwhelming, Najib admitted that the money was a ‘donation’ from an individual Arab.

Low should urge Najib to resign, or else he and the rest should choose to leave the cabinet in protest. This would be the right thing to do, instead of trying to spend time drafting a policy that will remain nothing but another piece of agreement, just like the 10-point agreement signed by Najib or the memorandum of understanding with the Hindraf movement.

Political funding and gratification

For Low to later blame the opposition and the Bar Council for ignoring his clarion call to set up regulations on political funding would be most unprofessional, given the current situation. Unless, of course, the cabinet decides to begin with a clean slate and Najib, who is personally responsible for the 1MDB scandal, steps down gracefully.

Najib’s insistence that he has the people’s support has riled up the entire nation, and this weekend will be the show of people’s protest against his premiership. Whatever you call it, a ‘donation’ of that quantum is obviously placing the country’s sovereignty at risk.

As Bar Council president Steven Thiru had pointed out , it is not that there are no laws regulating the ‘donation’; it is defined under the term, ‘gratification’ (in Section 3 of the MACC Act).

Most of us are even wondering if this is just the tip of the iceberg, since political funds are usually hidden away in some faraway ‘caves’ to avoid detection and the accounts being frozen by a new government. If this RM2.6 billion is only a ‘donation’ (literally read as a drop in the ocean), then one can wonder how huge the fund hidden away from the people all these years could be, today?

No one knows how much, but we are already concerned with just the RM2.6 billion funnelled into one man’s private accounts. Yet Najib failed to give a good explanation for the money he held as a ‘trustee’ that even former minister Rafidah Aziz is shivering over the implications of the donation from the Middle East.

We are also wondering whether the loan of RM42 billion by 1MDB was in fact a trench intentionally dug out for the opposition, had they come into power in 2013. God forbid, but if that was the case, then God is great! Whatever a man sows, he shall reap.

Low cannot continue to ignore the voices of the people and protect the man who is in the thick of the scandal himself. From the way things go, Najib appears to have the upper hand and is throwing the spanner into the works to stop any investigation or prosecution against himself, making him above the law.

While Najib remains in power, the people who are already feeling the pinch from the implementation of the goods and services tax (GST), now have to grapple with the free-falling ringgit.

The Federation of Private Medical Practitioners’ Associations Malaysia is already telling us that the depreciating ringgit will cause the cost of healthcare to go up by another 10 percent, on top of the six percent GST that people have to bear.

Therefore, against such a backdrop, it is not a surprise that the opposition and others who are following the 1MDB scandal will snub Low’s suggestion of setting up regulations on political funding.

Bear in mind that it was Najib himself who said that since there are no regulations on political funding, therefore there is no right or wrong. Low should listen to the voice from above.

Judging from the response to Bersih 4 rally, it will either put Najib and Barisan Nasional at war against the people for many years to come, or Najib should step down graciously amidst the 1MDB scandal that rocked the nation.

STEPHEN NG is an ordinary citizen with an avid interest in following political developments in the country since 2008.