The most recent saga about the assault on business people at the Kota Raya shopping complex in Kuala Lumpur reminds us of a similar act of rowdy and intimidating display at the Low Yat Plaza.

We condemn these spates of terrorising behaviours that reflect a total disregard to the promotion, upholding and policing of ethical conduct in business.

While the Business Ethics Institute of Malaysia (BEIM) commends the police action in arresting one individual reported to have harbored racist sentiments that threatened public order, we believe that the problems at hand cannot be effectively redressed by shutting down the blinds or make-believe actions.

Malaysia must demonstrate ethics in business and ethical conduct in more convincing terms.

To begin with, as we aspire to join the developed world of first world nations, we must recognise and engage in a sustainable promotion of ethics in business, policy making, and policing. It calls for leadership.

BEIM believes that the businessman, the policy-makers, the enforcement agencies and the consumers must subscribe to ethical values involving business.

The businessman who profiteers at the expense of ethical values must be vigilantly hunted down by the empowered enforcement agencies.

The consumers must also play their collaborative roles by being discerning consumers with an able disposition to boycott premises that cheat. Consumers who hunt for bargains with an ill intent to make a killing are just as guilty as the seller who cheats to make a quick buck. They both are unethical.

Meanwhile, political masters and leaders of political parties must not use such stunts pulled by people taking the law into their own hands as political currency for their own expediency. They must not only not pretend to look to the contrary or try to pay lip service, but fix the loose screws without fear or favor.

And the law-keepers must also demonstrate in a convincing and uncompromising manner that unethical conduct which hinges on ugly profiteering and any action that terrorises the business community are dealt with in a transparent, efficient and decisive manner. Political patronisation at the expense of ethics must be condemned.

In this regard, BEIM will not hesitate to question decisions and actions as well as in-actions taken that are suspect of not upholding ethics as practiced and sustained in the developed world of first world nations.

Establishing Malaysia as a nation of ethical commerce is everyone’s responsibility, and leaders must take the rap when we fail as a society of ethical people.