Tuesday August 9, 2011
Pemandu revs on despite doubts
By RASHVINJEET S.BEDI
rashvin@thestar.com.my
PETALING JAYA: Whenever there is news regarding an improvement in crime and corruption indices, some form of cynicism is bound to follow.
This is something that Pemandu (Performance Management and Delivery Unit) is taking in its stride.
Last week, Pemandu announced that the crime index had fallen 9.6% from January to June, compared to the same period last year.
The overall street crime incidents had also fallen to 11,299 cases up to June this year, a 41.6% reduction from 19,346 cases in the same period last year.
However most people's immediate reaction would be to question these results, something that director of the crime NKRA, Eugene Teh Yee, believed was natural.
“They will say their friends and family are experiencing crime. People will say there is something wrong with the data or someone is manipulating the data.
“We are at that stage now so we can only continue working,” he added.
Under the Government Transformation Programme, among the additional steps taken to combat crime include increasing police patrol on the streets.
Teh said that if they continued working and really produced results, people would eventually start to believe in their efforts.
“The perception change comes later,” he said.
It's more or less the same scenario with corruption.
A recent survey commissioned by Pemandu found that 45% of Malaysians believed the overall perception of graft in Malaysia has improved, up from 28% in 2009 to 39% last year.
The latest survey was conducted on a sample of approximately 2,000 Malaysians from March to May this year.
Some might doubt the survey results but director of corruption NKRA, D. Ravindran, said more and more people were beginning to believe in their efforts.
“Even foreigners are believing in us. Until Malaysians begin to believe and say it's good to do business, we won't win the fight against corruption,” he said.
