During his trip to Kuala Lumpur last month, United States President Barack Obama boasted that the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA) would have the highest anti-corruption standard .

Obama told civil society groups that the TPPA is a legally binding document, that it provides financial incentives for improved governance and is a tool to hold governments accountable .

However, Third World Network’s Fauwaz Abdul Aziz asked: “How can governments involved in the TPPA talk about transparency (or good governance) when the negotiations were not at all transparent?”

“There are provisions in the agreements - spanning some 6,000 pages - which do not bode well for anti-corruption aspirants,” Fauwaz said at a forum in Penang last night, titled “TPPA Revealed!”

"The Investment Chapter has a lot of teeth promoting and protecting foreign investors, unlike the Labour Chapter, which, though it says very many things in favour of workers, is basically, toothless, because if the obligations are violated, what can workers do? Nothing.

"It appears to have no enforcement for workers. Whereas for investors, the Investment Chapter says if you do anything that affects a foreign investor, this is what happens," he added at the three-hour event organised by social reform movement Aliran and human rights NGO Suaram.

'Not matters to leverage on'

Fauwaz said regulatory or transparency provisions in the TPPA may sound positive but these are not matters that civil society members or the ordinary people can leverage on.

It does not help the people, or activists, to be part of the policy making process, he added.

“The transparency and regulatory coherence they are talking about is actually to ensure that governments consider the input of industry stakeholders before policies are formulated,” he said.

“For example, when the Ministry of Health (MOH) wants to recommend a policy on tobacco control, the kind of transparency they are talking about is that the MOH must invite the tobacco industry players to come to the table and give their input

“This is ridiculous and unbelievable. It is like asking robbers and thieves to come to the table when trying to formulate a policy on theft, for example,” Fauwaz explained.

The other speakers at the forum were Pesticide Action Network and Empower representative Janarthani Arumugam, who spoke about how the TPPA marginalises women in agriculture, while Parti Sosialis Malaysia (PSM) secretary-general A Sivarajan touched on issues related to labour and migration.

Aliran’s Prema Devaraj moderated the event.

The TPPA will be tabled for voting in Parliament next month, tentatively on Jan 26, 2016, while the agreement itself is expected to be signed in New Zealand in early February next year.