TI-M president resigns

Transparency International-Malaysia (TI-M) president Paul Low has resigned from his post following a series of clashes with his executive committee.

A statement by TI-M secretary-general Loi Kheng Min said Low (right) resigned "in light of differing interpretations and views garnered in furtherance to the release of the Global Corruption Report (GCR) 2009."

"Low accepts full and sole responsibility for the release of the Malaysian chapter in the report."

Mohamed Iqbal, the deputy president, will act as president, Loi added in the four-paragraph statement issued this afternoon.

Low's resignation follows discontentment among executive committee members over his direct involvement in the Port Klang Free Zone (PKFZ) investigations and the release of TI Malaysia's Global Corruption Report 2009 without their knowledge.

Low, in his capacity as the TI-M president, released the movement's 'Global Corruption Report 2009: Corruption and the Private Sector' on Sept 24 where Kuala Dimensi Sdn Bhd was identified as a main cause for the PKFZ scandal.

Following that Kuala Dimensi's chief Tiong King Sing threatened to sue TI-M and Low for wrongly implicating his company. Tiong and MCA president Ong Tee Keat are involved in a running battle over related issues.

When contacted today, Low declined to comment.

Founding member quits too

Meanwhile the founding member and inaugural president of TI-M Tunku Abdul Aziz Tunku Ibrahim welcomed Low's decision and commended him for the move.

"I am pleased obviously because he is thinking about the survival of TI," said Abdul Aziz.

Abdul Aziz and another executive committee member Robert Phang had resigned from TI-M as well, expressing unhappiness with the present leadership.

He explained that his resignation was because TI had breached the very fundamentals and cardinal principles of the organisation.

"I no longer have confidence in the ability and judgment of the present TI-M leadership to protect and uphold the honour, integrity, dignity and reputation of Transparency International, the global coalition against corruption," he said in a statement issued later.

He also said that TI-M's entire leadership must also accept responsibility and resign.

"After all, they wholeheartedly endorsed the president's intended course of action. A new executive council election must be held immediately to save TI Malaysia from an ignominious premature exit, a prospect too dreadful to even contemplate.

"What the president has brought upon TI will be detrimental to the fight against corruption and the promotion of good, ethical governance that would give Malaysia at least a small window of opportunity to secure a place at the top table of international business competitiveness," he added.

A case of incredibly bad judgment

He added that by ignoring the potential for a conflict of interest in the situation, the leadership showed a lack of sensitivity of one of TI's cardinal principles of not investigating individual cases of corruption until they have come into the public domain.

He said that Low was a life member of the MCA when he accepted an invitation to head the Port Klang Authority's corporate governance committee.

"The decision was legal: but it was clearly unethical, given his long standing MCA connection. He made the decision in the full knowledge that the PKFZ project was under the overall oversight, and, therefore, responsibility, of successive ministers of transport, all MCA top brass.

"Ethical behaviour and avoidance of conflicts of interest are among the mainstays of TI operating principles," added Abdul Aziz.

Abdul Aziz further said that Low was also a major corporate figure having been the president of the Federation of Malaysian Manufacturers on several occasions over many years. He is the present vice-president of FMM.

"That puts him on a collision course as a corruption fighter if ever a situation arises in which he is forced to make a choice between his business connections and interests and his loyalty to Transparency International.

"That is also the reason why TI also does not allow members of government to hold elected office in the organisation, in order not to put them in an unnecessary dilemma," he said.

He further said that the PKFZ was widely perceived to have taken on all the worst features of a major financial scam involving, in part at least, the top MCA leaders.

"Paul Low's leading role on the committee enquiring and investigating into the management lapses of PKA had laid himself wide open to charges of bias and, worse, of his being politically partisan.

"All this could have been avoided if the president had only given the matter mature consideration. TI's standing today has been due, in no small measure, to its reputation for non-partisanship.

"The work of the founders to gain the confidence and trust of the public, and the grudging admiration of many governments world wide, has been severely damaged by what I consider to be a case of incredibly bad judgment," said Abdul Aziz.

"To have the movement sued and dragged through the courts, as has been widely publicised in the mainstream media, on account of his failure to act on good advice based on years of local and international experience on a subject closest to my heart is both arrogant and professionally negligent," he further noted.

Organisation should be revamped

Phang also reiterated a similar stand, saying that TI had diverted from its course as a corruption watchdog.

"Rightfully all TI members should have been given the chance to vote on the report before it was released... in this case it became a very serious mistake," he said.

He added that the whole organisation needed to be revamped and an extraordinary general meeting should held to select the new management.

"We have not had any meeting to discuss the report and I have no idea what is in the report.

"I had to resign, I cannot accept the fundamental rule of operation that has been violated," he said.