The Section 17A of the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (Amendment) Act 2018 provides that corporate enterprises will ultimately be responsible for acts of offering or receiving gratification brought on by their employees or business partners within their business landscape. Only recently enforced on 1 June 2020, individuals particularly in leadership positions in corporate enterprises who are found guilty for acts of corruption shall vicariously be liable to hefty penalties and/ or incarceration.
Our daily dose of news has always consisted of big bad wolf stories of corruption. Just catching up with corruption around the world is like a Whack-a-Mole arcade game. New fraudulent ways, new enablers – they crop up from time to time.
More so perennial are the many politically exposed persons who know that accepting monies from `donors’ or `sponsors’ is part of the allure of straddling high posts in government or government-linked corporations. Even relish in commanding exorbitant patronage fees, commissions or kickbacks in return for them promising business advantage. In their world, both giver and recipient are merely in the mutual presence to serve one another’s purpose as if it is a business transaction. How they have come to legitimize and preserve their make-believe business arrangement is the epitome of cultural entitlement. On top of receiving bribes, PEPs also have think-tanks to get around evading tax and laundering the proceeds. Later, PEPs would blatantly display living large in luxury afforded through their deceitful dealings. When PEPs had to lie about how they got prosperous, that can only be indicative of their complicity to the web of dirty money
In South Africa, government officials themselves were brazenly bidding for Covid-19 related government tenders via their network of family and friends. And there is the surge in corruption in Brazil that comes from alleged misuse of funds meant for the pandemic healthcare, even after having emerged to the world with a reputation from the Operation Car Wash scandal. The blast in Lebanon had brought Lebanese to the streets seeking answers in relation to corruption from the now resigned government.
Greed, dishonesty and complete disregard for governance are crippling a country’s socio-economic development, hampering equitable access to necessities like adequate healthcare, education, modernised infrastructure and safety, amongst others. Unfortunately for many poorer nations more often than not plagued by corruption, man-made disasters have had to happen just to prove the point.
The enforcement of Section 17A is a timely wake-up call to corporations operating business in Malaysia to entail sound ethics into their business dealings. Enterprises that donate, sponsor, agree to pay success fees or promise to enrich business relationships in creative ways in order to win public or private corporation contracts, are in a very precarious situation. Even if they were to use intermediaries and orchestrate any moves of bribery when brokering deals with the bribe recipients, there is no ambivalence when it comes down to the intention to corrupt (mens rea).
And because many global corporations are themselves subject to various anti-corruption legislations because of their geographical operations, they are most certainly cognizant of protecting their investment in territories known for corrupt government or only obtaining supplies from international companies that are reputable for their integrity and ethical stand. It is important to recognise that many industries who compete in the international arena are getting heavily regulated and therefore any businesses that are ready to supply products to global customers should consolidate their overall strategies to include an anti-corruption solidarity commitment within their organisation. Profitability in business should be dignified, fairly earned - not made between a few unscrupulous individuals for their own vested interests.
By and large, where some governments in other parts of the world were accused of being corrupt, high-ranking government officials would resign. Not in the case of the corrupted regime who once sat pretty `ruling’ the Malaysian government that was democratically removed from power by people majority, is now plotting a political comeback to restore its glory days when `bribery was business as usual’ in the name of cultural entitlement. Will corporations in Malaysia continue to feed this appetite or will they take heed of Section 17A and flush out any bribery inclination in their business practice?
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