In yet another of the Umno/BN robber-regime’s pathetic attempts to veil its venality behind a cloak of false concern for fiscal and financial probity, Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Nancy Shukri has reportedly announced a government move to “intensify initiatives to monitor the operations of non-profit organisations (NPOs) to prevent misuse of funds”.

According to the regime’s official ‘news’ agency, or in other words propaganda dispenser, Bernama , Nancy went on to explain that “such monitoring was crucial to ensure organisations with accumulated funds exceeding billions of ringgit each year were not involved in criminal activities such as money-laundering and financing terrorism”.

She further ‘explained’ that it is vital to ensure that the cost to the nation’s coffers of over RM1 billion per year in tax exemptions collectively enjoyed by NPOs involved in charity, social, education, literature, religion and scientific works throughout the country is commensurate with these organisations’ contributions to the public good.

Wow! Sure sounds impressive, huh? Or at least it does so for the one or two seconds it takes to realise that the entire ‘initiative’ is rendered ridiculous by the reality that of the RM2.6 billion that Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak has admitted receiving from a mystery benefactor, and on which he has paid no tax on the grounds that it was a ‘donation’, not a single sen was spent on the public good.

In fact most of us suspect that the RM2.6 billion was not a ‘donation’ but the proceeds of embezzlement from the RM40 billion alleged 1MDB fraud, and that in any case Najib is clearly by no means a non-profit organisation, let alone a tax-exempt one.

In short, when it comes to the prime minister, as to other Umno/BN minister, members and cronies, the triumvirate of ‘monitors’ touted by Nancy - the Legal Affairs Division of the Prime Minister’s Department, Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) and the Inland Revenue Board (IRB), along with a whole raft of other alleged ‘watchdogs’ like the Attorney-General’s Chambers, the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) and the police, are all rendered blind, dumb and impotent in the face of Umno/BN’s insatiable greed for power and money.

So, however pious its expressed intentions in this regard, the regime has no intention whatever of monitoring itself, but on the contrary is sparing no efforts to deter and if possible destroy the only genuine monitors of its plundering, blundering performance besides hopelessly-outnumbered Malaysian opposition politicians, activists and the independent news media.

Of course Umno/BN has for decades muzzled and misappropriated the institution that is constitutionally entitled if not obliged to monitor government performance on behalf of the Malaysian people, the so-called ‘mainstream’ print and broadcast media.

And it has striven mightily to silence online and thus not easily censorable sources of genuine political, financial and other news. With some success, unfortunately, as witnessed by the recent demise of The Malaysian Insider .

Some consolation for this loss is the fact that several other sites dedicated to truly monitoring the local political scene, including the trailblazing Malaysiakini, continue to survive and thrive.

Increasingly monitoring the Malaysian regime

But even more consoling, indeed encouraging to the point of exciting, is that similarly respectable and reliable news media outside Malaysia, and thus entirely free of any fears of possible manipulation, repression or punishment by Umno/BN, are increasingly monitoring the Malaysian regime.

Pre-eminent among these thus far, as the newspaper that has apparently led the international pack with revelations of the monster 1MDB and R2.6-billion Najib ‘donation’ scandals, has been that most trusted and widely-read sources of global financial news, The Wall Street Journal .

But other heavy-hitters like The Economist, The New York Times, Bloomberg and the Washington Post , along with others by now almost too numerous to mention, have not been far behind.

And I’m especially delighted to see joining the fray not only has my own favourite neighbourhood newspaper, The Sydney Morning Herald , but also the Australian Broadcasting Corporation ( ABC ).

A few Malaysians, from comments I have seen on Malaysiakini stories about the recent arrest and deportation of a reporter and cameraman from the investigative TV programme Four Corners, seem to be under the misapprehension that the ABC is an arm of the Australian government.

In fact, thanks to the prevalence of the separation of powers that characterises any genuine democracy, the ABC is so totally independent of government control or influence, and so dedicated to impartiality, that it is routinely accused of bias by all sides of Australian politics.

So, even in the absence of clear video evidence that the Malaysian regime lied in its claims that one of its reporting teams “crossed a police cordon” and “disobeyed police instructions” and thus threatened Najib’s security, the vast majority of my countrymen would believe the ABC .

Not for nationalistic or any other similarly biased reasons, but because most, like me, detest the way that power so often corrupts and the fact that, like Najib and his accomplices, the powerfully corrupt presume to consider themselves too self-important to be questioned about their alleged crimes, and far too high and mighty to be subject to justice like ordinary citizens.

Plus, to hark back to the statement by Najib sycophant Nancy Shukri that I alluded to earlier, too incurably and irredeemably crooked to be trusted when they claim to be self-monitoring.

DEAN JOHNS, after many years in Asia, currently lives with his Malaysian-born wife and daughter in Sydney, where he coaches and mentors writers and authors and practises as a writing therapist. Published books of his columns for Malaysiakini include ‘Mad about Malaysia', ‘Even Madder about Malaysia', ‘Missing Malaysia', ‘1Malaysia.con’ and ‘Malaysia Mania’.