Most civil servants are in the middle 40 percent (M40) income earners, above those in the bottom 40 percent (B40).

The balance is the top 20 percent (T20) income earners, but atypical Malaysians are represented by those in the M40 group.

During a recent forum in conjunction with International Anti-Corruption Day 2016, Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) deputy chief commissioner (prevention) Shamshun Baharin Mohd Jamil disclosed that only 162 civil servants came forth to report a corruption case in their agency.

This figure represents 0.01 percent of the 1.6 million civil servants in the country. In other words, only one out of 10,000 civil servants has the principle or courage to report corruption.

Going by this average, Malaysians are unlikely to come across a government official of such integrity, even though they may have met a few thousand civil servants in their lifetime.

As such, the title of the forum ‘Towards a corruption-free nation: Issues and challenges’ is laughable.

One wonders whether the Witness Protection Act and Whistleblower Protection Act are effective, or a typical Malaysian is apathetic.

If the answer is both, then reducing corruption alone is considered a success for MACC, as human nature has not changed since the millennia, and will continue till the end of time.

However, society can be shaped by sound education and value-based culture, apart from good governance.

But our education system is an abject failure, as studies on religious and moral values are seldom put into practice.

Having gone through schools and universities may make one learned but not necessarily educated in the true sense, when personal development was grossly lacking.

In 2007, the Performance Management and Delivery Unit (Pemandu) conducted a survey among 1,800 students from public and private universities. Shockingly, the majority responded that it was acceptable to give or take bribes.

In 2013, a survey on fraud, bribery and corruption by international accounting firm KPMG revealed that an overwhelming 90 percent of business organisations felt that bribery and corruption was necessary to do business in Malaysia.

As such, we better get real and not try to make believe that we can head towards being corruption-free, in the same way we can be pollution-free.

What we need is greater transparency, with promotions, contracts, concessions, licences and decisions based more on merit.

Organised chaoses, which are grand designs created by those out to exploit the situation, should be dismantled.

The majority of our civil servants are definitely not corrupt but sadly, few have the conviction to stamp out corruption, which has taken root at all levels of our society.

We can do with more civil servants placing national interest above all else, and not limiting to lip service or singing patriotic songs.