[1] Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim recently unveiled a RM459.8 billion budget. Pundits and politicians have dissected it and moved on. But one nagging question remains – is the machinery of government up to delivering it?
[2] The record shows that when government is involved, outcomes are patchy at best. We poured billions into a national car for decades, only to hand it to a foreign partner to make it work. We cannot buy ships – or much else for the armed forces – without scandal, delays and cost overruns; from the patrol vessels of the 1990s to the LCS, almost every major procurement seems destined to end badly. We cannot run an airline without bailouts, or manage a sovereign wealth fund without it becoming a global scandal. Too many government-linked companies, meant to be engines of growth, instead bleed losses or pile up debt. We could not even safeguard the savings of settlers and pilgrims. Corruption, abuse of power or plain incompetence: one way or another, the outcome is the same.
[3] Hardly a week passes without fresh evidence of the rot. The littoral combat ship (LCS) project has gone from six ships for RM9.13 billion to five for RM11.23 billion, with full combat readiness pushed back to 2035.[1][2] Even roads defeat us: eleven years on, 88% of Sabah’s Pan Borneo Highway remains unfinished.[3]
[4] Collecting public money fares no better. For five years, court bail money sat in the accounts of a private company that had no contract with the government, kept going by “repeated special exemptions”.[4] Some RM314 million collected for JPJ by another company has not been handed over.[5][6] And as PKR’s own Hassan Karim told Parliament, only 5% of the RM9.27 billion owed to the federal government was recovered last year.[7]
[5] These failures go to the heart of how government works: signing contracts, collecting revenue, accounting for public money, managing projects. These are the most basic functions of administration, guarded by layers of checks and balances that have existed for decades. Failures at this level – persisting for years – point to a breakdown far more fundamental.
[6] Every one of these scandals – whether born of corruption or plain incompetence – is also a failure of the system itself. Somebody somewhere – politicians, financial controllers, auditors, senior officials, administrators – must have known or should have known. That these things went on for so long, and on such a scale, can only mean that those entrusted with oversight were incompetent, corrupt or too afraid to do their duty.
[7] Five prime ministers since 1MDB. Dozens of scandals and administrative lapses. So much public money lost. So many politicians implicated. Too many government agencies deeply compromised. Checks and balances rendered ineffective. So few brought to account. So little changed. Taken together, what we have is a state that now struggles to buy, build or manage projects without scandal, incompetence or both, nor collect what it is owed – one that too often fails even in its basic administrative duties and responsibilities. A state that, by the MACC’s own estimate, lost RM277 billion to corruption, collusion and leakages in just six years.[8]
[8] Is the system now too hollowed out, too corrupted, too compromised to sustain the nation’s aspirations? I fear it is. Not because there are no good men and women left in the system, but because corruption, abuse of power, and incompetence are so overwhelming. Even the most passionate, most committed reformer would not know where to begin. And we, on our part, have grown so resigned to it all that we grumble and mumble, roll our eyes – and then vote the same politicians back into power and give the same system another lease of life.
[9] What is most alarming is not the scale of the failure but the indifference to it. Losses that would bring down governments elsewhere barely register here. The auditor-general reports; the PAC recommends; the minister promises a review – and the caravan moves on. Who has truly paid a price for the LCS debacle? Who has answered for five years of bail money held in private accounts? Year after year, vast sums are wasted, mismanaged or siphoned off – and we have come to accept it as the cost of doing business. Until those in power treat the decay of public administration as the crisis it is, every budget will carry a hidden tax: the billions that never reach the people they were meant for.
Dennis Ignatius | Kuala Lumpur | 21 October 2026
[1]LCS 1 risks handover without full combat capability, readiness could slip to 2035 | The Vibes | 5 October 2026
[2]LCS scandal: fewer ships, more money, less fire power | FMT | 6 October 2026
[3]AG’s Report: 88pc of Sabah Pan Borneo Highway incomplete after 11 years | NST | 5 October 2026
[4]PAC: RM130.8m bail money invested in operator’s name, e-Jamin had no contract for years | Malaysiakini (Bernama) | 5 October 2026
[5]JPJ suspends MYEG Group’s services as collection agent from Oct 5 | The Edge Malaysia | 2 October 2026
[6]Govt failing to collect billions in outstanding debts, says PKR’s Hassan | FMT | 7 October 2026
[7]Ibid.
[8]MACC: Malaysia lost RM277bil to corruption, collusion over 6 years | NST | 11 September 2025
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