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The road ahead for

Ombudsman Malaysia
Sharifah Munirah Alatas - October 15, 2018 8:20 AM
Last month, Prime Minister Dr Mahathir
Mohamad announced plans to establish an
Ombudsman Malaysia.

An Ombudsman is an independent,
impartial and free body which examines
citizens’ complaints usually associated with
unfair and unjust treatment by the
government. Often described as a
“government overseer”, it is a legislative
commissioner for investigating bureaucratic
abuse.

The staff in the Ombudsman are supposed

to be impartial as they are arbiters between
the government and individual citizens.

Complaints and grievances of government

maladministration, injustice and negligence
should be addressed by the Ombudsman.
However, amid the recent news about
setting it up, a nagging thought keeps
running through my mind: “An outlier must
be prepared to face the dilemma of being a
lonely voice in society.”

How is this relevant to Mahathir’s call to

transform the Public Complaints Bureau into
the Ombudsman Malaysia? Let me explain.

I recall that in the late 1960s, a seminal

study on the sociology of corruption in
Southeast Asian societies was published.
World-renowned intellectual Syed Hussein
Alatas, the Malaysian who wrote the piece,
was that lonely voice.
Almost 60 years have gone by. We have still
not implemented the Ombudsman scheme,
despite the metastatic transformation of
corruption in our nation.

Between the late 60s and the present,

sporadic references were made to this, but
at best it was received as mere lip service.

Ungku Aziz, Lim Kit Siang, MD Salleh

Yaapar and a few more prominent
individuals and institutes have referred to
the establishment of an Ombudsman.

I sincerely hope, though, that the prime

minister will not be an outlier in his current
quest to introduce this paradigmatic shift in
our socio-political process.

Earlier this month, in a London interview,

Mahathir responded to a question about
corruption. He alluded to the fact that there
are different levels of corruption in every
society, saying the level had reached
“dangerous heights” during Malaysia’s
previous administration.
Professor Alatas wrote about this in the
1960s when he outlined three stages of
corruption in societies: restricted, rampant
and destructive.

My guess is, Mahathir is quite aware that

Malaysia has already reached the end of
stage two.

It is definitely time to revisit the thoughts

of Syed Hussein Alatas, and Mahathir’s
Ombudsman Malaysia move is in the right
(and only) direction. However, I hope
history will not repeat itself.

In 1989, a special Cabinet committee

headed by then-deputy prime minister
Anwar Ibrahim was set up with the sole
purpose of introducing an Ombudsman
system. Alatas, the then vice-chancellor of
Universiti Malaya, was commissioned to
submit a special report on it.

He recommended the appointment of all

Ombudsman who have the powers to
receive and investigate public complaints
against government maladministration and
negligence.

In 1993, Lim Kit Siang called on the Cabinet

to revive this idea. His statement is filed
under “Ombudsman, Parliament”. He said in
order for all Ombudsman to be effective,
they should be independent of the
government and answerable only to
Parliament.

Now, in 2018, we seem closer to realising

our hope for an Ombudsman. However, the
practical difficulties of ridding our society of
corruption and bureaucratic abuse are
enormous.

This includes potential mishandling and

mismanagement after the Ombudsman
scheme is put in place.

I would like to touch on possible scenarios

that could emerge between the
Ombudsman and Ombudsman “watchers”.
The implication here is that even the
Ombudsman, in the beginning, should be
monitored by the public because the new
Malaysia is still groping through a myriad of
social, political and economic problems left
over from the previous regime.

There are eight areas on which we should

focus.

First, the staff of Ombudsman Malaysia

should be professional and of high quality.
They should know about matters being
investigated, be analytically equipped to
grasp the essence of the problem and be
intelligent enough to accept a complaint “at
face value”. If not, complaints may be
easily dismissed, often due to ignorance.

Essentially, the Ombudsman staff should be

well-informed of issues in order to be able
to provide the appropriate information to
complainants on the identity of advisers
associated with specific cases.

Second, if there are multiple Ombudsman

staff involved in a complaint, the process
towards a solution could become highly
bureaucratic, inefficient and impersonal. A
single-case officer should deal with a case
from beginning to end.

Third, the public must be made confident

that the Ombudsman process is not a
smoke screen. The process is not akin to a
court case, for instance, so the danger is
that secrecy and opacity may set in.

Fourth, a survey of grievances made to the

Ombudsman should be published annually
to allow for year-to-year comparisons. This
way, the public can monitor the successes
and failures concerning their specific
complaints.

Fifth, the Ombudsman process should not

be seen as one-sided, with the public not
being made privy to discussions between
the Ombudsman and the government
bodies being investigated. Furthermore,
reports should not be shared with the body
being investigated prior to sharing it with
the complainant.
Sixth, the Ombudsman should not be
perceived as being “under pressure” or as
gate-keepers. The potential of the
Ombudsman becoming “window dressing”
rather than a serious attempt to investigate
issues is a phenomenon with which the
Malaysian public is very familiar.

Seventh, there should be sufficient

interaction between the Ombudsman and
the public such as participation in reform
activities led by the Ombudsman, to dispel
suspicions regarding its independence.

Eighth, and to my mind, the most

fundamental requirement is that the
Ombudsman must be made up of
individuals of high moral integrity who have
a powerful anti-corruption mentality. They
should not be greedy. Because these
individuals themselves are not corrupt or
dishonest, it is likely they will not tolerate
corruption or other forms of abuse.

Once Ombudsman Malaysia is established,

it is my hope that the process of profound
moral awakening will start. This is urgently
needed in our society.
This moral awakening has to be moved by
an ideal of excellence and a sense of
shame.

* The views expressed are those of the

author and do not necessarily reflect
those of FMT.

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