The hard truth behind lackadaisical enforcement of laws


THE latest case of pollution, this time in Sungai Gong, and so many others before it, whether water, air or land, are not the evil work of the polluters alone since they have been allowed to misbehave all these years.

It is like misbehaving children at home or school, whose developing misbehaviour was not nipped in the bud by parents or teachers. The misbehaviour is thus allowed to go on and get worse. When children become criminals, they get blamed, not the parents or teachers who abdicated their roles to act when they should have. 

During pre-independence days, law enforcement was done in a proactive manner, where the enforcement officers had to go out and randomly carry out real surprise checks in the specific areas they were in charge of. Their supervisors or department heads would also go out to see with their own eyes whether staff have been carrying out their duties. If things were not right in any area, it was easy to pull up the enforcement officer in charge and discipline him/her. Nowadays it is based on “reports” from the lower levels to the higher, and would any enforcement officer give an incriminating report about his work?    

Talking of disciplining, I had occasion to ask the then head of Pemandu, Idris Jala, at a seminar some years ago, why recalcitrant government officers were not sacked. His answer: “The government does not sack its employees”. So rotten apples are kept in the service, and they cause good apples to rot also!

How did the system of proactive law enforcement become a system of management by complaints? Whose brainwave was this and was it approved by the cabinet? 

Thus, it is not uncommon to hear answers from enforcement departments that “there was no complaint about this before”. 

The management by complaints system puts the responsibility of law enforcement on the public. The enforcement methodology now is that if the public does not complain, there is nothing wrong that needs attention or action. 

Thus, the Department of Environment and Syabas “did not know” of the pollution being caused to Sungai Gong as the public did not complain.        

The management by complaints system is a great idea to absolve the enforcement agencies from dereliction of duty as it turns tables on the public for not being the “eyes and ears” of the enforcement agencies. 

And when somebody complains, the offending party often comes to know of who had complained. So who will want to complain as they don’t want red paint splashed on their doors or other retaliatory measures taken against them or their family members?      

* Ravinder Singh reads The Malaysian Insight.




 

* This is the opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insight. Article may be edited for brevity and clarity.


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