Deputy Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Minister M Kayveas is one of the few personalities in the government that I really respect. He has proven his commitment to his fundamental believes and principles in words and deeds. We all must support him in his crusade against corruption and dishonest practices.

Kayveas has said most of the things that could be said about corruption at local government and land office levels. He, however, fails to admit that the problem is more widespread and deep-seated than that.

Corruption and dishonesty, as they say, has a thousand symptoms. Here are some of them:

1) A few of the state governments, especially Selangor, continue to give large parcels of state land to retiring politicians. Some of these alienation are large enough to be converted into housing projects.

2) The controversial steel structures erected by the Kuala Lumpur City Hall at Jalan Masjid India are reported to cost no less than RM8 million. Estimates by some professional seems to indicate that such a simple and crude structure should not cost more than RM4 million.

3) No less than 20% of expenses incurred by contractors are still in the form of various 'facilitation' fees and expenses. Many of the 'bosses' from government departments and agencies insist in 'seeing' contractors before and after the tenders are offered.

These occasions are normally used to indicate their 'terms'. There have been cases where letters advising contractors that their bids were successful were withheld because the contractor did not turn up to 'see' the 'boss' first.

In other cases where the 'boss' is honest, clerical staff or even office boys would intercept such letters and demand their 'presents' from the successful contractors. When the project starts, the contractors will have other personalities to 'take care' of otherwise their progress payments would be delayed

4) Housing developers face the same degree of challenges from the time the land to be developed is to be consolidated and re-divided into residential lots to the final issuance of certificate of fitness by the local authorities.

Municipal authorities in Selangor, Negeri Sembilan Johor and Perak are notorious for this. Here, in most of the instances, delays, inefficiencies and red tape are no other then symptoms of chronic cases of corruption.

Most developers would agree that if not for these 'facilitation' expenses, houses could be sold to members of the public at prices that are at least 15% cheaper than now.

5) The same scenario prevails in various governments departments and agencies that are involved in the issuance of licences, permits and APs such as at the Registrar of Motor Vehicles, the Immigration Department and not to mention the Ministry of International Trade and Industry.

Indeed we have a tacit culture of corruption in the government administration. They work as a gang and not as a team. As they say, a gang conspires whilst a team inspires. This I believe this is what Kayveas referred to in his earlier reference to some of the municipalities.

Let us admit it that we are faced with a cultural challenge here. The government campaign against corruption and dishonest culture must be done on a grand and intensive scale. It should cover Umno and the politicians first before being extended to all government departments and agencies.

Honesty must be taught from school and be constantly reminded and demonstrated in words and deeds

It is my conviction that unless and until this has been implemented, all those budget allocations for the improvement of government machinery such as delivery systems, expediting approvals for issuance of licenses, etc, will be money down the drain.