GROWING ARROGANCE OF POWER: From envoy fiasco to racial bullying to dean's sacking

The government's decision to send back Muhammad Rizalman Ismail, defense staff assistant at Malaysia's High Commission in New Zealand, to assist in the investigation of burglary and attempted rape, has allowed the country to evade yet another round of impact on our reputation. That said, to salvage the country's bruised reputation is more than just this.

As a matter of fact, the country's reputation has been marred by the actions of little Napoleons in the public sector. Because of these people, the government's resolutions have not been effectively put into implementation.

The way things are done in this country is like this: the cabinet will map out the policies; the ministers issue the instructions and the officials execute the orders. The actual power lies in the hands of these officials.

Public servants have established a union among themselves and if they do not carry out their jobs well, or have done anything bad, there is nothing much the cabinet or ministers can do to them, because the same mistakes will be repeated if someone else were to take over the jobs. The ministers are at best firemen putting out the fires, especially those from MCA and Gerakan.

The rigid and antiquated system, accentuated by indiscipline, will eventually evolve into power arrogance.

Empowerment has been meant to facilitate the officials to serve the public, but many have forgotten their missions once the power is entrusted to them. They become haughty, self-conceited, demanding full submission from the people or risk seeing trouble.

Because of power arrogance these officials have been sluggish in recognizing their own mistakes and make amends.

By right the rakyat should be the bosses in a democratic society while government officials are public servants. Due to power craze, they have unfortunately failed to see this reality. Our government officials will never learn to be humble since no one is going to be dismissed anyway.

A classical example is the failure of 136 Chinese language graduates from UPSI to be sent to SMKs or SMJKs to become Chinese language teachers as planned.

During a closed door briefing, the director of education gave these teachers-to-be three options to choose from: to become a teacher and turn up as required; to give up teaching; and to be reserve teachers. These teachers-to-be were never given a chance to express themselves.

These officials are well aware they have the power in their hands and can do anything they want to these teachers-to-be, some of whom must honor the government scholarship contracts or pay the government back sums in excess of RM100,000 if they fail to report themselves to work, in breach of their contracts.

They have also been warned not to talk to the media. These officials have attempted to abuse their power to block the media's check-and-balance obligations.

These officials have also made a blunder by claiming that SMKs and SMJKs never lack Chinese language teachers, although the SMJK Development Council has provided evidence to prove that SMJKs in the country still lack 161 Chinese language teachers.

Why then have these officials insisted they have done nothing wrong? Because the power in their hands has made them feel shy to admit their own mistakes.

Deliberate transfer of teachers will have grave consequences. This will not only shatter the original intention of students pursuing the Chinese language course in UPSI, but will also deny SMKs and SMJKs of suitably qualified Chinese language teachers, thus affecting the development of Chinese education in this country.

On the resignation of the Director of Universiti Malaya's Centre for Democracy and Elections (UMcedel) Dr Mohammad Redzuan Othman, the government has never offered a truly convincing explanation whether he had been instructed by someone from the education ministry to resign, as claimed by former higher education minister Saifuddin Abdullah., or he would retire next year as UM has claimed.

If we are really serious in fulfilling academic freedom, academicians and undergraduates must be treated with due respect. Unfortunately, our officials not only fail to respect professionalism and the rights of the people, they have even gone this far as to override other people.

Because power has not been checked, we see some civil servants involving themselves in acts of human right infringement and human trafficking activities.

Thanks also to little Napoleons, we see government scholarships being handed out to undeserving students and the government's thwarted effort to rope in qualified professionals.

With power arrogance holding the country back in its progress, how do we expect ourselves to make it to the league of developed countries in a few years' time? -Mysinchew