WHISTLEBLOWERS uniquely unite Malaysians towards a heroic national duty. We can seed reform movements in every district, rural or urban. But unless the unity government passes legislation to shield whistleblowers, the cabinet will pay the price of each government scandal under its tenure.

Decades of silenced pleas, reports, scandals: we public service whistleblowers have waited on similar, yet discarded promises. No more excuses: the lights must be turned on in every corner of Malaysia. Today’s historic unity government can and must reset Malaysians’ shared destiny by immediate legal protection of our country’s heroes, its whistleblowers.

Whistleblowers paid the price when the cabinets of 2013 (Najib Razak), 2018 (Dr Mahathir Mohamad), 2020 (Muhyiddin Yassin), and 2021 (Ismail Sabri Yaakob) irresponsibly ignored the public service’s pleas.

Instead, they left our future generations with trillion-ringgit blindspots, high-risk corruptible public institutions, and a poor quality of life – destined to stagnate – for ordinary Malaysians.

Whistleblowers can unite the nation rapidly, visibly, and sustainably: we create positive reinforcement loops that directly solve entrenched failures in every district. Whistleblowers inspire other whistleblowers. We are on the ground where MPs are not: in schools, hospitals, police offices, administrative departments, and each and every level of ministries.

Malaysia’s lack of whistleblower protection is its own scandal: who benefits when thousands of whistleblowers are attacked, while politicians and senior public service officers refuse full and independent legal protection? Malaysia’s status quo for whistleblowers is an international disgrace and a public humiliation: a class of rotten apples at the top have traded millions of Malaysians’ progress for their own personal wealth, power, and immunity.

Meanwhile, Malaysia’s whistleblower heroes are heading towards extinction, unable to expose massive civil and criminal scandals, stunning inequality, and eye watering leakages.

This unity government must immediately take prescriptive and legal reforms to protect whistleblowers that chose the nation’s truth and prosperity over their personal safety.

Most of Malaysia’s endangered whistleblowers cannot trust the executive branch to offer serious, expedient, and fair whistleblower protection. Hence, the unity government must also establish a Public Ombudsman, a “people’s defender” that investigates severe misconduct among civil servants and offers a one-stop resource for whistleblowers: protection, investigation, and up to disciplinary or legal actions. The most serious cases must have an independent investigation and only a Public Ombudsman can provide that safety guarantee.

First, each ministry must issue and execute a circular, with immediate effect, that (1) states any informal or formal retaliation against a whistleblower is one of the highest disciplinary offences and will no longer be tolerated; (2) states that protection of alleged disciplinary, civil, or criminal offenders is a type of criminal gratification under Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission Act 2009 and will be prosecuted; and (3) provides automatic protection against disciplinary retaliation if whistleblowers testify in a civil or criminal court proceedings.

Second, parliament must immediately draft, collaborate on, and pass key amendments to the nation’s laws with retroactive effect, to (1) remove contradictory, intentionally ambiguous anti-whistleblower provisions that silence disclosures: Public Officers Regulations and Discipline 1993 – section 19; Penal Code – 203A; Sedition Act 1948 – almost in its entirety;

Official Secrets Act 1972 – almost in its entirety; (2) extend civil and criminal protection to victims, families, and witnesses; and (3) amend in significant portions the Whistleblower Protection Act 2010 to (3a) allow whistleblowers to obtain legal advice without losing protection and (3b): allow whistleblowers to report to entities beyond the executive branch without losing protection. Examples include court proceedings, the Human Rights Commission of Malaysia, self-application, and reporting to the media.

Third, parliament must establish a Public Ombudsman outside the executive branch that (1) receives, investigates, offers whistleblower protection, and takes legal or disciplinary action in severe public service misconduct cases; (2) its budget is to be percentage of the federal budget; (3) its key commissioners should be drawn from legal societies, good governance civil society groups and research institutions, and subject-matter experts (health, children, environment); (4) former and current public servants as well as politicians must be excluded due to a perceived or real conflict of interest with investigations into the public service; and (5) has specific departments focused on marginalised populations: rural or poor communities, Orang Asli, East Malaysia, the disabled, elderly, children, and women.

This cabinet must deliver tangible, clear results that outlast their tenure and apply broadly to all Malaysians in the peninsula, Sabah, and Sarawak. To effectively dismantle corruption and establish decades-strong reform at Malaysia’s ministries, agencies, institutions, and all public services, we can only start with people-centric institutional reforms.

A civil service can make or break a government. A covered-up government scandal can fracture a nation. Serious, independent, and rapid protection of whistleblowers is a universally loved reform with prominent, widespread, and prompt benefits. Nothing can justify a delay. Without whistleblowers, all reforms will only likely be on paper, otherwise delayed and made ineffectual. Simply put, no policy, ministry, nor government institution in Malaysia is safe until Malaysia’s whistleblowers are safe. Each cabinet accepts the legal responsibilities of the federal government’s past scandals, current scandals, and future scandals. 

Hence, today’s cabinet is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to dismantle corruption, abuse, misconduct, leakages, and other universally hated traits of Malaysian life. – June 16, 2023.

* Signed by Saiful Nizam and 21 others.

* 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.