Here's a tale that is now too common in our country: A businessman goes to a government department to put in a tender. He loses.

And the reason for that is that a rival business had won the contract even though their price was higher.

The winning company had 'better contacts' and the 'politically-influential' board members had managed to grease the right palms. Our businessman friend, having lost the tender, fumes. He has enough evidence to go and make a police report, or file a complaint with the Anti-Corruption Agency, or at the very least make a formal protest to the tender officer's superiors.

But after a few weeks, he cools down, scraps the idea of registering his unhappiness and waits for the next tender. He had an afterthought somehow or rather, it was just simply not worth it to go the stretch and expose the corruption.

Aside from the fact that the culture of corruption is rife and almost universal in today's Malaysia, our businessman knows that the whole episode would just be buried under paperwork and be stifled to death by the silence of the authorities. A cover-up had saved the corrupt yet again.

While the public is deeply conscious of the spread of corruption in our country, many of us are also sadly aware that revealing these wrong-doings may not get us anywhere. Too often, cases are covered-up by the guilty and their accomplices even before they manage to reach the investigating officer's desk. Sometimes, the investigating officers themselves snuff out the cases, hoping to avoid confrontation with the rich and powerful.

One-week wonders

Even those cases which make the press, or reach public knowledge through the official media, are usually 'one-week wonders'. They appear for a few days and the cases become the talk of the town, but then a gruff minister always comes along to say that the case is 'being investigated' and not to be discussed openly. 'The right channel must be used,' is the mantra.

And after some weeks of waiting, we find that the cases have proceeded nowhere, as it has been killed off for 'lack of evidence'.

The 'cover-up' culture is one of the biggest obstacles in the battle against corruption in Malaysia. The powers-that-be put up a wall of silence to protect their own interests whenever corruption is brought forth to the public eye.

Ministers and civil servants, with a little help from the investigating and prosecuting authorities, clamp-up after being given all the details behind a corruption accusation, simply because they do not want to rock a boat in which they too are usually the passengers.

The press sniffs corruption but cannot follow it up once the wall of silence is raised. The symbiotic relationship between politicians and the official media causes selective persecution to occur. Those vilified by the official press are usually those who stray too far from the government's line and are in line for the chopping block otherwise the blanket of protection would be draped over them too.

Empowering the public

By setting up the Movement for Democracy and Anti-Corruption (Gerak), which can be accessed at www.gerakmalaysia.org , I hope to provide an avenue to eradicate the cover-up culture. Gerak will be a platform to keep investigations into corruption cases alive by making a permanent record of corruption complaints and re-visiting them through analyses, commentaries and updates until the cases are finally solved.

Gerak wants to bring the culture of anti-corruption within reach of the ordinary public. We are looking to devise a way by which whistle-blowers can be assured that their cases would given due attention and the serious action they deserve. Aside from educating the public in general terms about the evils of institutional corruption, we would like to focus on exposing the public to how corruption cases are being acted upon or otherwise.

In the past year, I have been meeting and exchanging ideas with many in my generation and even those a decade or so younger than myself on the future of our country. Generally, many of us agree that corruption is widespread and the efforts currently said to be underway have been too little, too late.

Most share the feeling that the issue has become a political football and mired in too much partisan rivalry. My feeling is that corruption is too important an issue to be left to any narrow political groups to handle. The fight to stop corruption must be the people's agenda, in the truest sense of the word. Everyone must participate and they must be given the means to erase this wraith before it becomes too imbedded in our national culture.

Dead elephant

I am looking forward to helping Gerak achieve that goal. My sincere hope is that we find a way to express our indignation at the destructive state we are in. We are also keen to translate that expression into productive action. If Gerak can be the tool for that, then we are making a small step towards a corruption-free Malaysia.

A young university undergraduate told me a few months ago that he is joining Gerak because corruption has become too big 'like a dead elephant in the middle of the road'. In the past, that dead elephant had been covered up with blankets by the powers-that-be so that the public could not see it. But we could still smell it and even the most calculated cover up - could stop the stench from making us queasy.

I hope that Gerak will be able to make the public aware of that dead elephant, until the authorities pick themselves up to dispose the carcass in the right way. That is perhaps, too picturesque a way to describe the situation today, but here's my pledge:

Gerak will try its best to bring corruption issues to the public eye and make it everyone's business to fight it.

Ezam Mohd Nor, 39, is Chairman of the Movement for Democracy and Anti Corruption (Gerak) and Parti Keadilan Rakyat Youth chief.