From Walter Sandosam
The human resources minister recently confirmed in Parliament that the CEO of Human Resource Development Corp has returned to work after his garden leave. One can presume that the garden at his home has been well tended to.
He has returned, presumably without restrictions as to what he can or cannot do now as CEO. He continues as the appointee of the human resources minister as allowed in the Human Resources Development (HRD) Act 2001.
The return to his post is an anti-climax from the sequence of events that unfurled in a torrent pursuant to the release of the auditor-generals (A-G) report, with a haemorrhaging of news of purported gross mismanagement, with the cursory intimation of corruption thrown in.
A number of consequential issues, involving our institutions, have seen the light of day and these are unsavoury.
The minister has commented on two fronts, saying everyone is innocent until proven guilty and no HRD Corp personnel has been charged in court.
He also confirmed that Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) had withdrawn its representative from HRDs Corps investment panel, stressing that it was at the central banks own insistence. He further noted that the HRD Act 2001 requires its participation and that the ministry would consider the need to amend the Act.
Firstly, this is blatant disregard for the law, whatever BNMs contention is on possible compromise on its supervisory role. Who is to take BNM to task and fine them if required, just as it unhesitatingly levies fines on banks for various offences, including electronic banking downtimes?
Surely the law takes precedence, and BNM has flouted it its moral authority is compromised given that the specific provision in the Act has not been amended. There is an unholy silence here. Would things have been different on HRD Corps investment portfolio if BNM was on board?
Secondly, a local media publication went off in a frenzy publishing a series of confessions from a past senior executive alleging misdeeds by the current CEO. These were implied to be both systemic and inalienably corrupt.
Did the publication in this instance behave professionally? Or did it just go off to share juicy unfounded gossip to increase readership? One shudders to think of the consequences of this, if true, to the freedom of the press.
In hindsight, does the minister think it was a right decision to not allow HRD Corp the freedom to seek legal remedy against false accusations, given his comment that no one has been charged in court?
Thirdly, is the A-G an unwitting accomplice to these shenanigans, given the content and tone of its report that encouraged the media to pick it up? The A-Gs report had, after all, peeled back the layers to reveal the rotten core. On the contrary, an external audit had not raised concerns.
Balance this against the notice that has been given to over 1,000 GLCs that the A-Gs officers will be visiting soon, purportedly to highlight misdeeds and misdemeanours la HRD Corp. As an internationally certified internal auditor, I hold the view that audit reports are to build, not to harm.
Fourthly, we have the role of the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission to contend with. Are they still investigating? This has to be taken in the context that MACC had visited HRD Corp some years back. Is there a report?
MACCs lack of a statement on the status of investigations, if any, and a definitive time frame for resolution does not put the graft buster in a positive light.
A deduction can be made here, rightly or wrongly. Either MACC has bigger fish to fry no point expending resources on ikan bilis cases, unlike the allure of working with international parties to trace sources of ill-gotten assets uncovered in the Pandora Papers or there is no case to answer here on corrupt activities that can stand up in a court of law.
Some quarters deduce that the latter is true. As an ex-oversight panel member of the MACC, I can attest that the graft buster moves speedily and without fear or favour if there are instances of corruption that can stand up to scrutiny in a court of law.
So how does the public digest what has happened here? This episode has directly affected the credibility of a number of institutions, which should take on board the lessons learnt here lest their credibility be tarnished going forward.
Blatant disregard of the provisions of the law, whoever the perpetrator may be, is unacceptable.
It appears that this episode was a storm in a teacup largely attributable to pervasive inadequacies and inefficiencies in HRD Corps governance framework. The corruption element is unproven.
This needs urgent reform to avoid ambiguity and grey areas on executive authority limits. The board of directors should get cracking and appreciate that they have a fiduciary duty here, and cannot claim ignorance or impotence to act in the best interests of the company.
A line has to be drawn here. HRD Corp was set up with noble objectives and has much work to do. To its credit, the human resources minister has achieved much in a relatively short time and must be commended.
Walter Sandosam is a former MACC oversight panel member and an FMT reader.
The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect the views of FMT.