I refer to Dr Jeffrey Chiang's letter, Does immigration work in mysterious ways?

I sympathise with him and the ensuing story relating to the attitude of the top brass of the Immigration Department may explain why things are like that in Malaysia and will remain like that unless the present leadership does something drastic.

On Aug 29, 2006, a manager from my company was assigned to attend a function organised by the Federation of Malaysian Manufacturiers (FMM) in a famous five-star hotel at the centre of Kuala Lumpur. We had to pay RM80 ringgit as participation fee.

The purpose was to meet the top brass of the Immigration Department so that corporate personalities can have a one-on-one free and easy conversation without any protocol and to facilitate networking. We were supplied the names of 15 bigwigs of the said department and were promised they would be participating.

However, I was told that, the function did not serve its purpose because only three of the top brass made it to the function attended by 30 company representatives. Those present were the director-general, Visa, Pass and Permit Division's director and Employment and Pass Division's director.

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Besides the deputy director-general, the others who did not make it to the function were the directors of Foreign Workers, Enforcement, Security and Passport, Research and Planning, IT and Records, Administration, Finance, Internal Audit, Selangor Immigration and Kuala Lumpur Immigration.

It was mentioned that the event if held at Putrajaya may have attracted better participation because most of the directors reside there. The DG should be mindful that the members of FMM came from companies much further than Putrajaya and came immediately after work because the function was slated for 6pm.

I hope that, one of our MPs will moot a motion in Parliament to deduct RM1 from the director-general's salary for his poor leadership. The saying "there are no bad soldiers but only bad officers" aptly fits the case.