Malaysia's Rotten Enforcement

Rubbish pork and rotten enforcement

Stanley Koh | June 3, 2011

The recent revelation about “rubbish pork” being sold on the market was a grim reminder of how often unscrupulous business practices go unnoticed by Malaysian authorities.

Through the years, there have been several shocking disclosures raising concern about the efficiency and effectiveness of enforcement agencies as protectors of food safety and public health.

Apparently, the practice of using low quality pork – or even pig carrion – in sausages, dim sum and other pork-based foods has been going on for 10 years. Why did it go undetected for so long by any of the various levels of the authority responsible for food safety? Is the government adequately taking care of public health?

Food safety in the country is administered by a network of federal, state, district and municipal authorities. The top authority is the Food Quality Control Unit of the Health Ministry. It was established in 1974 and is responsible for overall technical supervision. It determines food safety policies, formulates legislation, guidelines and codes of practice and coordinates activities at state and district levels.

One wonders whether the unit, as well as the state, district and local authorities, have adequate financial and manpower resources to function effectively, considering that food production has grown rapidly over the years.

Is there anything besides rubbish pork that we should be worried about? Are there other dark secrets yet to be exposed?

Perhaps we should review the Malaysian track record.

Quite some time ago, Chinese guilds and associations raised concerns about the unscrupulous use of prohibited drugs and hazardous chemicals in animal feeds, vegetables and fruits.

Big profits

More recently, we heard complaints that some animal feed suppliers and livestock farmers had resorted to using various types of stimulants to accelerate the growth of livestock or plants so that they could reap in big profits, never mind the risk to public health.

In 1996, the public was shocked by reports that some poultry farmers were administering the cancer-causing antibiotic Nitrofuran to their chickens. According to one of these reports, a government laboratory tested 142 chickens and found that more than half showed contamination of up to 4,000%.

In August 1996, poultry farmers nationwide pledged not to administer Nitrofuran to chickens younger than 28 days. But a few days later, the government decided to ban the antibiotic altogether. Read more.

Anwar Gets SNAPPED: The Failure of an Opposition Leader Comes Home to Roost

By Leon H. Wolf

In a development that should be viewed as welcome by supporters of one of the relatively few functional Muslim-majority democracies in the world, signs are continuing to mount that Anwar Ibrahim’s opposition coalition may be beginning to crumble. Earlier this month, Anwar was sharply criticized by Sarawakians for only offering the Sarawak National Party (SNAP) three seats, which many Sarawakians considered to be an insultingly lowball number. Anwar attempted to deflect criticism for this move by claiming that he had an agreement signed in writing with the President of SNAP in which SNAP agreed to only contest three seats. SNAP’s response, essentially, was to call Anwar a liar:

Sarawak Nasional Party (SNAP) has strongly rebutted PKR de facto leader Anwar Ibrahim’s claims that it had signed an agreement with the party, to contest only in three seats a few months before the recent Sarawak election.

SNAP Youth chief Dayrell Enterie said Anwar’s statement was “totally incorrect”.

“This statement of his (Anwar) is totally incorrect as neither SNAP nor its president (who was erroneously named Stanley Jugol in the Malaysiakini article) had entered into any written agreement whatsoever on seat allocations with PKR.”

Fortunately (or, one suspects, unfortunately) for Anwar, his claim was not that he had a formal understanding or a verbal agreement with SNAP regarding the allocation of seats, but that he had an agreement in writing. Therefore, this whole matter ought to be easy to clear up for Anwar – all he has to do is produce the written agreement and all will be well. Given SNAP’s flat denial of its existence, and given Anwar’s failure to produce the written agreement when he first claimed it existed, it is not difficult to guess whether or not Anwar is lying about this agreement.

More ominous than SNAP’s flat rebuttal of Anwar’s specific claim, though is the clear signal from SNAP that it is willing to walk away from Anwar and PKR, if necessary:

“SNAP wishes to reiterate that it is not a push-over party for any West Malaysian entity nor is SNAP a Pakatan stooge,” he said in a statement mailed to FMT.

These political troubles are anything but welcome for Anwar, who is trying together a bizarre coalition with disparate interests – almost none of which are any sort of good news for Western interests or for the ultimate fate of Democracy in Malaysia, especially given that Anwar has been apparently caught on a DNA test doing what the kids today refer to as “pulling a Dominique Strauss Kahn.”

It is hopeful that the political fissures now beginning to show will signal the beginning of the end for a man who mysteriously remains a cause célèbre among some of America’s hopelessly naïve elites. Anwar Ibrahim is lionized amongst the usual suspects in the United States because he was previously jailed on a sodomy charge, which was overturned in 2004. Lost in the wake of the celebration over Anwar’s release amongst these same people is the fact that Anwar was simultaneously convicted of corruption on a scale that would make William Jefferson, Duke Cunningham, and Edwin Edwards blush. This conviction was not overturned and in fact was upheld on appeal.Read more.

Why I Stayed - A Profundity

Here is why I stayed — John Rahman

May 28, 2011

MAY 28 — I shall start with a story of hope.

Two, actually.

I had an ex-colleague who runs a car wash business in one of the most ulu places in Peninsular Malaysia. It’s a simple business, so simple that his wife just sits under a tree all day long collecting money and supervising some school kids they employ to do the dirty work. He keeps his day job while earning a cool RM7,000 side income every month.

In my skyscraper of an office now, an old makcik pushes around a shopping cart (probably nicked while the guards at the nearby hypermarket weren’t looking!) filled to the brim with knick-knacks, kacang, muruku and stuff. She comes by once a week and without fail, my colleagues and I will stock up on junk food to munch on while working. Based on sales on our floor alone — okay, maybe we are gluttons! — but we estimate she profits around RM50 per floor, and with well over 50 floors in the building, she must earn at least RM2,000 a week (tax free!).

We can complain about spiralling cost of living, but these are ordinary people taking full advantage of the abundance of opportunities in Malaysia to earn a living. This is the land of opportunity. If an illegal immigrant can come here and earn a living, justly or not, there is no reason why a person like me, born and bred in this environment, with ample knowledge of how things work — for better or for worse — cannot make it big.

I shall say this, whether or not people choose to leave the country is entirely up to them. Everybody has their own dreams and ambitions, and if migrating overseas takes you closer to those dreams, so be it. But do not give excuses to justify you leaving. You don’t need an excuse, certainly not a bad one, to pursue your life-long goals.

You do not need to blame the crummy education system — it is crummy, but it is an education system we all grew up with and I would like to think that a lot of us turned out fine.

You can’t blame racism or glass ceilings because everyone honest enough to admit will tell you that glass ceilings exist EVERYWHERE. The current debate over the “tradition” of Europeans as the de facto head of the IMF should tell you more than you need to know about glass ceilings.

All those crummy reasons don’t hold up because while Malaysians are busy flocking to Singapore, Singaporeans are busy flocking elsewhere too. That is where the whole argument falls apart. Do we see some green pasture across the straits that the Singaporeans don’t see? And do the Indonesians see something green about KL that we don’t?

My friends, this is the age of globalisation. Borders between countries are blurring. This is not like the time where miners came to Malaya from China with the sole purpose of better economic prospects. Today, there are Malaysians working in Sudan, Dutchmen working in Nigeria, Americans working in Siberia. Do you think these people are where they are because of some misguided notion that these places are better than their homeland? No, people work where they work and people build a home where they do because this is where life takes them.

When addressing his own country’s emigrant issue, Rajiv Ghandi once said: “A brain drain is better than a brain in the drain.” That we, as Malaysians, are deemed capable enough to be able to work anywhere in the world is a clear indication of our talents. And whether the people migrating will choose to admit it or not, these are talents nourished by the foundations we built for ourselves while growing up on the streets of KL, Ipoh and JB.

I can go on and on about how I want to change this country, how I want to make a difference. That is all true, but that is also secondary. People can claim that they are leaving because of better prospects, a more comfortable life. That is probably true as well, but still a secondary issue.Read more.

(Drove from KK to Sandakan yesterday and Sandakan to Lahad Datu today.My last trip on these roads was 3 years ago and I cursed every mile of the way how we had been had.Today, the road conditions have degenerated so badly your car could be your very coffin.Maybe, the PM,CM and all the ministers should board 1BUS and see how wonderful their trip would be on Sabah's hellish roads, just waiting to maim or kill you.

Not only the Federal Minister of Health should resign, the Minister of Works should also resign.Sabah, by rights should have dual-carriageways linking East and West and North and South.

On my way to Tabin Wildlife Reserve.Will have lots of photos, probably too busy, no politics, no posting, just enjoy God's gifts to mankind, nature and tranquility of the jungle - Hantu Laut)

Malaysia’s Prime Minister Najib: The First Muslim Leader to Declare Suicide Bombing Contrary to Islam

Malaysia’s Prime Minister Najib: The First Muslim Leader to Declare Suicide Bombing Contrary to Islam

Najib Razak, the Prime Minister of Malaysia, gave a speech at Oxford last week that should have grabbed the eye of every policymaker, every columnist, and every pundit concerned with the clash between the West and radical Islam. It was not a recitation of hoary platitudes; it was a unique and wonderful thing, the first time a Muslim leader did not merely hedge and equivocate about “Islam means peace,” or “Islam does not abide terror,” or any of the other dozens of things Muslim leaders all too often say in front of Western audiences, only to attempt to appease their populations at home with the usual train of death-to-Israel, death-to-America, glory-in-martyrdom talk in a language American reporters can’t follow.

It was a great speech, precisely because it got down into specifics.

Read more.