It took some time to push the 1Malaysia Development Berhad scandal into the open. Now that it is firmly in the spotlight, I see some are troubled by a case of two wrongs making a right.
What are the two wrongs? One is the 1MDB scandal and another is how some info was obtained.
Here is some background for the uninitiated. A huge chunk of stuff we know about the scandal originates from stolen information. This is not to say everything we know came from stolen material. A large portion comes from 1MDB’s own sloppily published annual accounts that by itself raise questions. It is these questions that lead us here today.
A former employee of PetroSaudi International (PSI was 1MDB’s partner in a failed and suspicious deal) stole vast amount of data from his employer, which eventually ended up in the hands of several third parties. One of them is the Malaysian financial newspaper The Edge. Because the newspaper bought the info (or rather, tricked the former PSI employee into giving them the data) and used it to expose 1MDB, critics of the newspaper raised a red flag and said, “hey, hang on. two wrongs do not make a right.”
They are saying The Edge should not have obtained the data. And now that it has, The Edge is in the wrong. They claim there is a logical moral conundrum here.
I am firmly in the opinion there is no moral conundrum at all. If there is, then it exists only in isolation with incredible disregard for the context we live in: that context is the environment of pervasive institutional failure.
The institutions that were responsible to keep our government honest failed to do their job. The watchmen were not just sleeping, they ignored the signs, the warnings and the whistleblowers. They failed not because they were merely incompetent. They chose to fail. Truly, when the preliminary questions were asked several years ago before the leaks happened, the government simply dismissed the concerns with a nonchalant hand wave. When they could no longer ignore the scandal, they went for the whistleblowers.
The Edge did the investigation into 1MDB. What did the police do in the meantime? Why was it possible for The Edge to get to the documents but not the police? The authority lacked the necessary curiosity to do their job. Why?
I strongly feel the official investigation only began because of the leaks. Without the leak, the reasonably question to ask is, would there have been any investigation? I believe the answer is no. It is also arguable that the investigation started only out of political pressure and the need to be seen to do something. It is not out of their sense of responsibility. Those institutions failed and responsibility be damned.
The 1MDB scandal is not the first time our institutions are seen as biased in enforcing the law without fear or favor. How many times have the police been accused of selective prosecutions? There are enough instances to create widespread trust deficit in our society. In the 1MDB case, so far, the accused who are in power are being protected.
The check and balance mechanism is not working properly and the controversy (a minor appendix to the 1MDB scandal) surrounding The Edge demonstrates exactly the institutional failure.
Running parallel to the institutional failure is the function of the fourth estate, which is to keep the public informed. The creation of an informed citizenry is a form of check and balance. The function of the press is not merely trying to sell papers. Because some in the press have done their job, the press is possibly our last hope to right any wrong. And that what The Edge, the Sarawak Report and others have done: their responsibility.
The institutional failure of our government means the authority has transferred fully their responsibility to The Edge (and others as well).
Here is another related factor to consider. If the police had done their job and obtained the info either through polite request or by force, would the supposed dilemma arise?
Now, take the institutional failure and the implicit transfer of responsibility from the authority to the press. Once that is done, is there any more dilemma?
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