There has been a chorus of calls recently for the resignation or removal of S Samy Vellu from his works ministry portfolio because of poor workmanship by contractors or lax supervision on the part of officials.

But in his defence, it seems to me only fair to make the point that planning, design and construction snafus like falling ceilings, leaking pipes, collapsed slopes, massive flash floods and very costly tunnels that may not be as SMART as they're cracked-up to be, are by no means confined to Malaysia.

Just a few of the many non-Malaysian examples that come to mind include a Boston traffic tunnel so defective that it took a year after construction to fix; a department store that collapsed in Seoul; a suspension bridge that blew down in California; part of a new airport terminal in France that self-destructed; and multi-storey office block built in Melbourne many years ago that spontaneously shed so many of its windows that some local wag dubbed it "the world's first deciduous building".

In short, human nature is fallible, no system or society is perfect, and accidents and oversights will happen.

But on the other side of the coin, Samy Vellu should be held properly accountable for any poor and/or overpriced public works, as should his cabinet colleagues and heads of the civil service be held responsible for sub-standard performance by their departments.

By "properly accountable" or "responsible" I mean not subject to summary dismissal on the slightest suspicion or outcry from possibly ill-informed critics, but open to scrutiny and inquiry in a genuine spirit of seeking to rectify problems and imperfections, and if necessary removing impediments to progress or prosecuting any parties suspected of impropriety.

Following the Seoul department store collapse, for example, local and international forensic engineering firms were called in to investigate the causes of the disaster; consequent legal proceedings convicted building owners and public officials discovered to be corruptly colluding in breaches of regulations; and thousands of other buildings in South Korea were also subsequently examined for similar problems.

In Malaysia, by contrast, despite claims of aims like transparency and accountability, the 'authorities' strive for the illusion of perfection through a culture of official secrecy. A system of secret tenders, secret contracts and secret accounts, all, if possible, under the cloak of the Official Secrets Act.

Real problem

If any secrets are leaked or suspicions are voiced, the next step is denial. A shining recent example of this was the diatribe delivered by Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Mohd Nazri Abdul Aziz.

This was in response to a quizzing in Parliament by Parliamentary Opposition Leader Lim Kit Siang about progress in the ACA investigations into allegations that Deputy Internal Security Minister Mohd Johari Boharum was paid RM5.5 million to release suspects held under the Emergency Ordinance.

"Malaysia will never develop as long as there are people like Lim," declared Aziz.

"All these (corruption allegations) are lies. Why are you so stupid? Where are the allegations? You have no brains. Stupid, stupid, stupid. All these are lies. Where is the RM5 million? There is no RM5 million, which means the allegation is not true."

Deny anything long enough or strongly enough and, or so the theory appears to go, it's bound to disappear eventually. But in the event that it doesn't vanish, you then switch to claiming that everybody does it and it's impossible to stop, and simply do nothing about it.

The technique was brilliantly illustrated by Speaker Ramli Ngah Talib when asked by DAP members to rule against improper use of the word "stupid" in the outburst. He declined to do so on the grounds that "Improper language is used all the time in Dewan Rakyat. If I make a ruling every time it happens we will not have any time for debates."

Which brings us to Malaysia's real and abiding problem. Not ceilings or slopes falling down, but so many people in regulatory bodies and federal, state and local government who chronically get away with falling down on their jobs.

There's an impressive array of laws and regulations but, due to indolence, incompetence, corruption or a complex blend of all three factors, there's precious little or else only selective, 'close one eye'-style enforcement.

No wonder that so many projects are so costly and shoddy that they highlight the 'con' in the very words 'contractor' and 'construction'; that the environment is plagued by the poisons and rubbish in rivers, logging in 'protected' areas, clearing for plantations in water catchment areas and 'haze' from illegal burning of peat forests.

No wonder the roads are infested and the streets clogged by drivers and riders who brazenly flout traffic and parking laws; that public space is routinely 'privatised' by political parties, developers and the proprietors of restaurants and foodstalls; that landslides and flash floods are so suspiciously frequent; that election laws are flagrantly flouted.

Even the prime minister, who famously lamented that Malaysia has a "first-world infrastructure but a third-world mentality" and who should by now be well aware of the lamentable lack of law enforcement, recently called the US State Department's criticism of Malaysia's record on people-trafficking as unfair on the grounds that a new, tough law had been passed to solve the problem.

What problem, I ask you, was ever solved in Malaysia by passing a law? Malaysia has laws against the improper alienation of public land and the construction of buildings without permission, but they don't apply, apparently, to Zainal@ Zakaria Mat Deros of Istana Impian fame or thousands of owners of factories in Selangor.

Malaysia has anti-corruption laws but that doesn't seem to trouble anybody with high-level clout and connections. Malaysia has traffic laws, environmental protection laws, zoning laws, and laws for and against whatever you can think of.

But almost every law, it appears to me, is just another opportunity for the officers of some agency or another to make their lives easier - and in many cases a good deal richer - by falling down on the job of honestly and efficiently administering it.