Like the national car, the national airline drags like a bulky anchor on the ship of state. The continuing large losses of both activities now require regular transfusions of scarce cash that are placing near-fatal demands on the national economy. They might be jettisoned. But pride is in the way.

Singapore, the little island neighbour next door, has a vigorous airline, often rated the best and largest in the world. With only three million people, half of them foreigners made welcome from all over the world, the erstwhile island state sits in the South like a shining jewel, to remind Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad of Malaysia what might have been.

The container traffic through the port of Singapore is the busiest in the world, and Malaysia is working frantically into the night, designing docks and ordering cranes, in an effort to undermine this sore point of jealousy. Singapore, avowedly the creation of its senior minister of broad portfolio, Lee Kuan Yew, is a constant reminder to its 23 million neighbours across the causeway of what Malaysia has lost, along with a quiet suggestion that success lies in better management.

Simple answer

What is wrong with Malaysia? Every observer inevitably asks this question. There must be a simple answer.

Most seize first the issue of corruption. Singapore very early made it clear that government ministers must make do with their official salaries, which were set at a level to discourage temptations that might lead to dishonourable discharge, with its concomitant loss of a lucrative current income and secure future pension benefits.

Malaysia, by contrast, made graft an institution, rewarding political loyalty rather than executive skill. Adeptness at political maneuvering was given precedence over native ability and adept devotion to development of personal skills. Success in Malaysia was measured by political office rather than practical performance.

This difference in approach to government organisation is given by many analysts is crucial in understanding the national fetish to play catch-up with first Singapore, then other nations both near and far. It is an inferiority complex made more maddening by the guilty conscience that failure to maintain common standards of truth and honesty engender.

Singapore has now submarines. Suddenly Malaysia has developed a defence need that can only be filled by submarines. No one has thought to ask Singapore what the submarines are to be used for. It isn't important.

Singapore has submarines, so Malaysia must have submarines also. The serious questions of support, technical competence and budgetary requirements are treated as superficial incidentals. So submarines it must be, with a complete new naval base to house them.

Thailand, the larger neighbour to the north, has been sold a strange naval vessel given designation as an "aircraft carrier", but which gives the casual observer the impression that an aquatic arena for giant skateboard acrobatics has been foisted by the arms merchants onto the unsuspecting Thai government.

The vessel has been seen at sea, generally barging the royal family on ceremonial occasions. Tourists have been heard to prefer the old royal river barges, which offer better viewing at shorter range. The is a significant difference in operating costs, as the Thais have found to their horror.

Malaysia has opted for lots of new patrol boats, and fast ones at that. One smart move amid a lorry load of bad. These at least have a rational justification for anti-piracy duty, coastal patrol against illegal immigrants, illegal trawling in the Malacca Straits, and patrol duty to prevent the real threat of hostage taking from the offshore islands of Sabah/Sarawak. The overall justification, however, is less military than commercial. The boats have the economic allure of partially local production.

Business transactions

Though the naval ambitions have their place in the national pride, it is in the air that attention is currently directed. The shares in MAS are being traded in bulk, both over and under the table. Brunei has just traded away a large chunk, at just above market values, buyer unknown.

Now the Ministry of Finance has bought an even bigger piece, something of a buyback after long lease, paying over twice the market price. Brunei cannot be excused from feeling hurt, and wondering if they indeed sold to A, who then sold at twice the price to B, all pre-arranged, of course.

In Malaysia, the government ministers are always insiders, and their business transactions are not only government guaranteed, but planned and put forward by themselves on a one-for-you-and-you-and-two-for-me basis. Shooting fish in a barrel it is called.

Development in Malaysia has the characteristic flourish of five-year planning. The prime minister plans, and the public pays, not for five years, but far into the unforeseeable future, usually at above market rates. First the land is identified, usually the federal lands or the Orang Asli lands, and then the divisions are made into "yours, yours, yours and mine" as the lines are drawn on the map.

When the very legal transfers have been made into the ministers' names, all very quietly, the plans are announced publicly. Then the disbursements are made to the new "owners" of the land. All very proper and legal. There are no laws against insider trading for government servants in Malaysia.

Next the contracts are let. The architects are turned loose without budgetary constraints. Not a word is leaked to the Parliament, much less the press as the models take shape, the furnishings are ordered, with neither competitive tender nor technical specification.

Matters of taste are resolved over the prime minister's coffee table, family members only, surrounded by catalogues and salesmen. The price lists have been removed, and no one dares to enquire why an item selling at 50 sen retails all over Kuala Lumpur now costs RM4 for the new project. All costs to be covered by the Finance Ministry.

All roads lead to the Finance Ministry. Anwar Ibrahim was lately and lastly the finance minister. He raised objections regarding procedures and practices. He is now serving 15 years in jail.

The finance minister

The finance minister administers the assets of the nation, especially the national oil company. But no accounts are made public of the activities of the Finance Ministry, which involve the management of all major corporations in Malaysia. The contracts for the new railway to Ipoh are drawn by the Transport Ministry, the parties chosen by methods unknown.

One major contractor, Mitsui, is to provide electrical and communications equipment. Recently Mitsui was called to account by the Japanese tax department for attempting to disguise suspicious payments to a fictitious consulting firm in connection with a contract for telephone switching equipment to the national telephone company, Telecom.

Although Mitsui agreed to cooperate in identifying the parties who received the multi-million ringgit payment, and the ACA has launched an "investigation", the matter, like all similar things Malaysian, has quietly died.

The finance minister is a quiet sort, generally preferring to appear in public in native costume, and typically offering a shy and modest smile to the camera, the very picture of humility and charm. He is busy, an active man with an active mind. Those who deal with him find his public charm has faded to a cold "take-it-or-leave-it stance".

In Malaysia, the prime minister provides the pride and the puff, with a pretence of prudent public planning, but it is the finance minister who is the moneyman. Now Malaysia is in big trouble. There is more debt than can ever be paid. Keeping the government from default requires daily juggling of deferred payments and bold effrontery.

Yet new projects, such as the RM1billion new auditorium for Putrajaya, are being put forward on a "do-it-yesterday" schedule, with no concern for where the money will come from or what the final costs will be. Every public and private fund is being tapped to provide the cash for new projects, with the hope of pumping life into the corpse of the Malaysian economy. Assistants from the Finance Ministry are sent daily to Parliament to give reassurance that nothing is amiss. The deceit reeks to the rafters.

What is wrong with Malaysia? In a search for the causes, one need not look far beyond the two ministries to find the cause. Two men together, from the inception of the new Umno, taking over first the treasury of the Umno party and then the nation, have managed to destroy a beautiful country.

Greed and ambition are the cancer of government, as Lee Kuan Yew knew. He does not say it, but one senses that he would have preferred that Singapore had stayed with Malaysia. But the matter of corruption in public service could not be resolved. It has made all the difference.

HARUN RASHID is a scientist avidly interested in the application of Islamic principles in international affairs. The promotion of goodwill through civilisational dialogue motivates his writing. His Worldview column is a personal analysis of Malaysian affairs from a global perspective.