Inter-Research And Studies (IRAS)

In times of crisis, like today’s coronavirus widespread in our nation, the parliament as the highest institution in this country must ensure our people and the nation’s well-being are being prioritised by the government of the day. In this case, even if the coronavirus is yet to be under control and the movement control order (MCO) is being implemented, the period and time of the parliamentary sittings should not be reduced no matter what it takes in order to ensure the sitting government is properly checked and scrutinised in whatever it undertakes to ensure public interests are maintained, corruption, power abuse and mismanagement of funds can be prevented. It is the utmost responsibilities of the sitting government to ensure the smooth proceedings of the parliament by ensuring all member of parliament of their safety and security while the proceedings are ongoing while the crisis is being tackled. Today, based on our observation on the rebel government, they are obviously disappo...

This article has earlier appeared in Beritadaily.com on 22/09/2016 Recently, the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC), under the leadership of the newly appointed chief commissioner Dzulkifli Ahmad, has made a string of arrests of high-ranking civil servants ranging from Datuks to Datuks Seri and Tan Sris. Well, whenever MACC is helmed by a new chief, such enthusiasm seems to be bubbling. It begs the question of whether the new broom can sweep as well till the end. Yes, Dzulkifli has adopted the right approach, according to many. But so did all the previous MACC chiefs, who had started well with a spate of arrests and prosecutions of corrupt public figures. But they ended up being frowned upon by many powerful politicians and leaders because MACC was trying its best to go deeper into these corrupt elements, their source and associates. And let us not forget what had happened to MACC last year when it was subjected to actions that demoralised its staff and made a mockery of it...

This article has earlier appeared in Beritadaily.com on 14/5/2016 The multi-billion ringgit scandal of 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) is far from over. The prime minister was hoping that the people would slowly forget about the whole episode and “move forward”. Just what kind of “move forward” is he expecting from us? The 1MDB report released by the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) consists of many kinds of twists and turns which have left many readers and observers gravely confused and wondering if the sole purpose of this report was to absolve the prime minister of any blame or wrongdoings in the scandal. Well, from the eyes of a lay person, it is clear the report is implying that Prime Minister Najib Razak was in no way responsible for the scandal, even if he had signed many of those documents, blindly or whatsoever. The prime minister has nothing to do with decision-making in 1MDB. The prime minister is merely the chairman of the advisory board and he has no direct discretion ...

This article has earlier appeared in Beritadaily.com on 3/3/2016 Since 2008 when the ruling Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition first lost its two-thirds majority in the general election and again failed to regain the much needed numbers in the 2013 polls, BN leaders, particularly from its dominant party Umno, have frequently resorted to divide and rule tactics in an attempt to regain lost ground. These leaders would stir up racial and religious problems and put the blame on various opposition parties and their leaders, leading civil society and human rights groups claiming that these people are threatening the special rights of the Malays and insulting Islam. The intention of these leaders is crystal clear, to divert the people’s attention from the ugly scenes in the corridors of power: corruption, power abuse and mismanagement which have cost the nation billions of ringgit every year. Umno leaders have somehow realised that the people are now watching their every move and they have to c...

This article has earlier appeared in Beritadaily.com on 26/2/2016 Barisan Nasional leaders, particularly those from Umno, should wake up and accept the fact that arresting and imprisoning people will not stop criticisms from being levelled against the ruling party and the government. Instead, it will certainly increase public suspicion over what these government leaders are actually up to. Apart from that, such actions will also give the impression that the BN government is trying to cover up weaknesses in its administration. In politics, public perception, whether negative or positive, exists in every form, be it criticism, commentaries, discussions, condemnations, debates, exchange of ideas or just simply a chat in a coffee shop. Whatever the BN government is doing or if any of its top leaders is linked to controversies or scandals, it will inevitably attract public attention and generate public perceptions based on the information obtained. Perception is prevalent and unless th...

This article has earlier appeared in Beritadaily.com on 19/2/2016 If a leading politician or senior official from the Barisan Nasional (BN) government was caught or exposed for his corrupt practices, the people would make hell of a noise demanding that the person resign, be probed and charged for the crimes committed. However, today, the leading BN politician or senior official will fire back by claiming that those calling for action to be taken against him are threatening the existence of the Malay race in this nation. He will add that without Umno, there will be no more Malays in this land. Again, when people saw a leading figure from the BN government abusing his powers to award government contracts to members of his family, close relatives or cronies, calls for the person to be probed and demanding his resignation will be met with his response that it is un-Islamic to do so or it is not the way of Islam to call for action to be taken against the leader or official. In shor...

Public & Press Statement Recently, the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) has decided to block two influential websites which has been critical to the BN government. The blockade took place after these two websites published a kind of “warning” letter from the Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) to Tabung Haji over some kind of “fund mismanagement” in the said organization. The MCMC reasoned that the blockade to these two websites were because of the words and statements published are against the law and order. We would like to ask the BN government, is reporting or exposing a crime against the law? Why are the authorities apprehending the person who reported or exposed criminal elements within an organization or the government and not going after the culprits who abused their powers and took the public funds for their personal interests? Is the BN government giving an impression to the public that any persons reporting a misdeed, corruption or any criminal element w...

This article has earlier appeared in the Beritadaily.com on 21/1/2016 First of all, why must members of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) be gagged and not allowed to issue any statements pertaining to the committee's ongoing investigations or hearings on the government’s financial irregularities? Is PAC functioning in secrecy or is it some sort of a secret society? Why all inquiries carried out by the PAC should not be made public and the people are being prevented from knowing its proceedings? If the leaders of the ruling Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition keep on insisting that PAC’s probes into the financial irregularities in the public service as well as government-linked-companies (GLCs) should not be disclosed to the people, then can only assume that they want to cover-up the misdeeds and wrongdoings within the government. No wonder the BN government’s budget deficit is increasing every year and they keep on losing billions of ringgit of public funds to power abuse, mismanag...

This article has earlier appeared in the Beritadaily.com on 13/1/2016 Loyalty to the nation means persons or citizens who demonstrate their loyalty first and utmost to the nation, its foundation and the Federal Constitution. The nation means everything to the person or citizen as his or her place of birth, where growth and development of oneself has taken place, where one has been residing and working, as well as the place where one is depending on in every aspect. To demonstrate one’s loyalty to the nation means to ensure its foundation and Federal Constitution is preserved, and preventing the nation from destruction. Loyalty to the leaders refers to one’s loyalty towards a person with a leadership position or someone who possesses power or rule over the nation. In many circumstances, the leader or the person who is in power can be good and bad, can be caring to the people and the leader can also be selfish and self-interested without any regard for the people and the entire nation. ...

This article has earlier appeared in Beritadaily.com on 4/12/2015 WH Cheng When the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) was in the midst of investigating the controversial and debt-ridden 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB), its efforts and hard work were suddenly halted when the then committee chairman Nur Jazlan Mohamed and some other members who are mostly BN parliamentarians were abruptly removed and 'promoted' to positions in the government administration in a reshuffle by the prime minister. During the transition, Dewan Rakyat Speaker Pandikar Amin Mulia had also disallowed PAC deputy chairman Dr Tan Seng Giaw from taking over the inquiry and had the entire committee suspended indefinitely. The suspension of PAC by the Speaker was justified by the explanation that the committee has been rendered ineffective following the departure of Nur Jazlan as chair and almost half of its membership. The truth is, the move by the BN government has made the PAC a lame duck, thus delay...

This article has earlier appeared in Beritadaily.com on 9/11/2015 WH Cheng We all have seen and heard of the Budget 2016 tabled by Prime Minister and Umno president Najib Razak recently. On the surface, it looks so attractive that some people may get overly excited until they look deeper into the content. Our major concern here is, does this budget really serve its purpose? Our nation’s economy has been battered by the continuous depreciation of the ringgit. Inflation has been rising right to the top, and our people could no longer bear the rising cost of living these days. Economically, most of us are in quite a defensive mode because we need to fight for our survival, work even harder to earn more money just so we could put some food on the table for our family. Is this what the BN government has planned all this while? Making sure we are all tied up, frustrated and feeling helpless, so we have no more time to look at the way BN runs this nation of ours to ruins? Let u...

By WH Cheng When we starting asking, is it worth supporting the Palestinian course, we are very certain that most of you would be dumb for a moment and later on began asking on the motive of this question. Some of you would definitely retaliate by saying that such initiatives are humanitarian and no one should question nor against it. Some of you might also publicly condemn those who oppose or question the support for Palestine. And even the majority of our Bumiputra youths today are obsessed with the Palestinian course which can be traced back during the era of former premier Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad who believes Malaysia should express its views on the plight of the Palestinians “without fear or favour”. In fact, our government was very supportive of former Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) chairman Yasser Arafat and his vision for a Palestinian state. Little known to many of us, despite decades of financial support and other monetary allocations to the Palestinian humanit...

By Patrick Winn All Muslims know pork, booze and premarital canoodling violates Islamic teachings. But in Malaysia, home to a rising tide of fundamentalist Islam, senior clerics are warning against more insidious dangers to the faith. Such as death metal. And puppies. And Valentine’s Day. Malaysia is a bastion of Islam in tropical Southeast Asia. It’s also a nation of mall-goers and Instagram addicts. Many in Malaysia see themselves as both devout and cosmopolitan. Their ethos extols mosques and skyscrapers alike. But as Malaysia modernizes, its state-backed religious authorities are embarking on a spree of fatwas. Each is a decree based on interpretations of the Quran. The fatwas are typically seen as guidelines but police can potentially enforce them under Malaysia’s Sharia laws. These days, the fatwas keep piling up. Malaysia’s conservative Muslims appear panicked by the corrosive influence of Western modernity. There’s even an “e-fatwa” site to help the nation keep track of the ...

By Ahmad Fauzi Abdul Hamid The grim reality of elusive unity, plagued by ethnocentric and ethno-religious divisions, is underlined by the continual existence of fault lines that anthropologist Shamsul A. B. calls ‘axes of contradictions’ . The stubborn presence of such social cleavages, after half a century of nationhood, raises the issue of the efficacy of integrative policies pursued by successive Barisan Nasional (BN: National Front) governments. Momentarily eclipsed by the modernisation ethos of Mahathir’s Vision 2020 and Abdullah Ahmad Badawi’s Islam Hadhari (civilisational Islam), the ‘national unity’ agenda has made a comeback during Najib Razak’s era since 2009 in the form of his ‘One Malaysia’ (1Malaysia) scheme. It has not been smooth sailing for Najib. It is understandably difficult for him to admit that the multiple polarisation of Malaysian society was effected at the hands of none other than his colleagues and former bosses in the ruling United Malays National Organisati...

Many of us are not aware the need and importance of the separation of powers between the party and the government. To the general political understanding of today, the chairman, president or secretary-general of the ruling party shall be automatically be appointed as prime minister or the head of the government. So does the members of the party central committee or executives, they all will automatically gain ministerial positions in the government by virtue of their leadership positions in the party. Very simple and straight forward, isn't so? Well, not many of us would know if the mixture of powers between the party and the government were to continue. Somehow, the government machinery would eventually become the party's organ. It would not happen directly but rather in an indirect manner as the machinery of the government of the day would eventually answers to the ruling party's call. The question here is, does the party own the government and does government belo...

By Jack Wong, Ipoh Teachers are still confused over the School-Based Assessment or Pentaksiran Berasaskan Sekolah (PBS) while students have become the victims. The idea of the PBS is good and there are successful examples abroad. However, why is it a problem for us? Even education officers and school heads are confused since the implementation of PBS, not to mention teachers and students. They wonder whether school examinations should be retained. Therefore, different practices can be found in different schools. Some have abolished the monthly tests and end-of-term examinations, some have retained internal end-of-term examinations while others retain the end-of-year examinations. The abolition of examinations is one thing but the bigger problem is the workload has been greatly increased due to inadequate training, vague instructions and burdensome paperwork. Under the PBS, teachers cannot concentrate on teaching and, as a result, they do things gingerly and are worried about the out...

The intrusion of Lahad Datu, Sabah by a group of heavily armed terrorists believed to be originated from the Southern Philippines has been one of the major highlights in the current news reports. So, who is actually at fault in this crisis situation? Our main question here is, where is the Royal Malaysian Navy (TLDM) and the Royal Malaysian Air Force (TUDM) as well as the Army (TDM) who are supposed to watch over the waters, air and the lands in our country? Another big question mark to the Ministry of Defense which is currently under minister Datuk Ahmad Zahid Hamidi who is also the Umno vice-president. It was understood that the Ministry of Defense had spend billions of Ringgit under the tenure of the then Datuk Najib Razak and the current Datuk Ahmad Zahid to acquire many kinds of modern weapons, such as the MIG aircrafts, the naval patrol vessels, gunboats, the Scorpene submarines and the Russian made main battle tanks in order to effective secure our nation from enemy intrude...

With the latest case of police brutality has been exposed. It has already caused another death as the result of police torture. It is simple that the police top brass would respond to such cases. They would just say the force would conduct its own internal investigation, domestic inquiry, or the policemen involved would be suspended awaiting further investigation. After all these efforts - internal investigation, domestic inquiries, suspension of the police personnel, what we got today? It is still happening. The police brutality and torturing are still happening. The number of death in the police custody are still happening. It has not stop, but instead it has been continuing much like a fanfare within the police force itself. It has already became a routine and a must-do job within the police force today. What are the improvement plans, counter-measures, productive measures or whatever they could name? Yes, they listed down hundreds of them. So does those under the Government Tr...

By Viktor Wong Malaysia, 55 years is over and now our nation is heading towards the 56th year, that is of course next year 2013. The New Economic Policy (NEP) was established and implemented immediately after the May 13, 1969 racial riots. The NEP was the brainchild of the then second prime minister Tun Abdul Razak who had taken over the country leadership from Tunku Abdul Rahman after the bloody riots in 1969 as the result of the Alliance's defeat in the general election during that year. What is NEP all about? Of course we all know that, but many of our new generations do not even know what was that. Many younger Malaysians today often view NEP as a tool of corruption, power abuse and an easy way to achieve power and wealth. Yes, the NEP has became like that. The NEP has in fact swayed from its original objectives. NEP was born out in aftermath of the May 13, 1969 riots in order to safeguard the social and economic interest of the Bumiputra communities, particularly the Ma...

By P.Ramakrishnan, President of Aliran Twenty five years ago, Malaysia witnessed what one person could do to sustain his lust for power. His unabated lust for power unleashed the worst traits in the Barisan Nasional to imprison 106 innocent Malaysians to keep the BN in power. The man behind this dark episode in our history was none other than Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, the fourth Prime Minister of Malaysia. On 27 October 1987 the rule of law was discarded, natural justice was ignored, the role of the judiciary was overridden, parliamentary democracy was sidelined so that he could cling on to power at all costs and by all means. As Prime Minister, Home Minister and Justice Minister, Mahathir rode roughshod so that his position would remain safe and sound and that there would be no one to challenge him. Today, more than ever, we must remember this shameful part of our history and wonder whether this will be repeated when the results of the 13th general election are announced. ...