Police chief's extension gets thumbs down

Inspector-General of Police Musa Hassan's one-year extension in office continues to get unfavourable responses.

Malaysiakini in Kota Kinabalu has been swamped with mail with hardly any bouquets since Home Minister Hishammuddin Hussein Onn and his cousin Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak both announced that "Musa's services are very much needed by the federal government for the moment".

Former Transparency International Malaysia chief Tunku Abdul Aziz (right), who is travelling, was among those who were left "speechless" by the extension in a brief text message.

Given Abdul Aziz's previous stand on the issue, "the decision no doubt came as an unpleasant surprise to him".

Abdul Aziz is also DAP vice-chairperson and a former vice-president of Transparency International.

Two Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) Advisory Panel members, Simon Sipaun and Robert Phang, spoke on the issue, one saying he was "not surprised at all" and the other "very surprised" and expects nothing good to come out of it.

Phang admitted that he was very unpleasantly surprised that "Musa will be around for yet another year during which time anything is possible".

"The government should reveal the real reason why he has not been told to go as expected by most people," said Phang in a telephone interview.

"Also this doesn't reflect very well on the deputy IGP and the other top eight directors in the police. They are all equally qualified, perhaps more, to be IGP. Is Musa saying that he has unfinished business that the others can't handle?"

Like Sipaun, Phang doesn't discount that Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim's pending sodomy trial for a second time could be one reason for Musa staying back in the IGP's post but not the only reason.

He declined to speculate at the other possible reasons and added that "there are 1001 reasons as mentioned by DAP stalwart Lim Kit Siang in his blog, in Parliament and in court cases".

May not fit medical bill?

Phang is more concerned with the fact that Musa doesn't deserve an extension of service for the very same reasons he has cited in mitigation for his continued stay in the top job at the Police Department - the Five-Year Strategic Plan (2008-2012).

Phang (left) has been left in "no doubt that he (Musa) lobbied for the extension although he has publicly feigned total surprise".

"I don't see why he feels that he should still be around. The crime rate has almost topped 100 percent since he pledged under the Strategic Plan to reduce it by 20 percent," said Phang who has gone through the statistics for himself.

"Frankly, I can only pray for him, and I say this in all sincerity, because I don't see him having a very good year ahead. I can only hope that he doesn't claim in a year's time that he must stay on until the year 2012 when the Strategic Plan ends."

Resigned to making the best use possible of a bad situation, Phang feels for starters, that Musa should make some serious commitments in fighting crime and not just make more empty promises as in the past.

Seriously, Phang wants Malaysiakini to conduct "a secret email poll" of all its subscribers to find out how much public support Musa has especially for his one-year extension of service.

Phang himself, along with another MACC advisor, Ramon Navaratnam, were the subject of a recent secret email poll of other MACC advisors over their outspoken statements in the media.

Services required politically?

Sipaun's separate take on the one-year extension of Musa's service as IGP draws lessons from his 32 years in the civil service which culminated in being appointed state secretary in the Sabah civil service.

Based on this, he says he knew deep down in his heart that Musa's services would be extended when the time came and therefore he's not surprised at all.

"Our entire culture is strange in the sense that your weakness can be your strength, and your strength can be your weakness," said Sipaun.

"If you are very professional in your work, the politicians may not like it and will only be too glad when you retire. There are no extensions of service for such people.

"One the other hand, there are people who are not very professional in their work, and these are the very people the politicians would like to see stay on because they serve a useful purpose."

Sipaun (right) adds that Musa has already compromised himself in the public eye by expressing his gratitude to the government for letting him stay on as IGP.

This, in his view, means that Musa now feels himself indebted to the government and he would be ever willing to do its bidding even if it means going against the image of the police, on paper, as a professional and politically neutral force.

Surprisingly, Sipaun concedes that he was very impressed by Musa when he first met him.

At that time, he was the deputy IGP and was invited to speak sometimes at Suhakam (Human Rights Commission) public forums.

"I gathered from his talk at one panel meeting where he was invited as a speaker that he was very pro-human rights," said Sipaun who is also vice-chairperson of Suhakam.

"People can change. I saw Musa really change when he became IGP. He was no longer the same person, concerned about human rights."

Like Sipaun, Phang and Aziz, other observations came from people who feel that there is little justification to let Musa stay on as IGP.

Consumer Movement for Sabah and Labuan (Cash) president Patrick Sindu thinks that Musa's main task in the year ahead is to "help cover up all the misdeeds of the BN government."

Sindu went on to cite a long list of the BN's alleged misdeeds over the last 52 years in power.

Consumer activist and former Cash secretary-general, Hashimah Hasbullah Yahaya, is all for Musa's re-appointment but declines to elaborate.

She is in a minority of one, a fact the Tawau-born activist readily acknowledges.