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EDITORIAL: Integrity
ought not be invoked in vain
If President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) motto of “integrity is my life” — which he has
publicly repeated numerous times — were to be taken literally, he would
currently be on life support.
This year’s Global Corruption Barometer report, conducted by Transparency
International, dealt a debilitating blow to Ma and his administration, with 36
percent of Taiwanese respondents reported as paying a bribe to someone in a
government agency in the past 12 months.
More than half, or 56 percent, felt that public officials, civil servants and
police were corrupt. Also branded corrupt was the judiciary by 57 percent of
respondents, the legislature by 75 percent, and political parties by 74 percent.
While the Ma administration had suspicions about the validity of the survey and
argued that the results were different from similar polls conducted by the
Taiwanese government, it is no surprise that people say the results more or less
reflect their real-life experience.
In the past two years, numerous officials in the Ma administration and
politicians of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), of which Ma serves as
chairman, have been either indicted or accused of corruption. Among them are
former Executive Yuan secretary-general Lin Yi-shih (林益世), former Taipei City
councilor Lai Su-ju (賴素如), former National Fire Agency director-general Huang
Chi-min (黃季敏) and several officials at River Management Offices and the Taiwan
Railways Administration across the country.
Just this past week, Control Yuan Secretary-General Chen Feng-yi (陳豐義) was
charged with illegally destroying documents reportedly related to the KMT’s
ill-gotten party assets, an issue that Ma pledged to deal with, but never did.
In an interview with Next TV on Wednesday, Ma evaded the party assets issue each
time he was pressed about it.
The president has also turned a blind eye to concerns raised by lawmakers across
party lines that officials of Taiwan Power Co and CPC Corp, Taiwan, could be
involved in corruption. This is why these state-owned companies must be reformed
first before electricity and fuel prices are increased — one of Ma’s proud
policies displaying questionable vision.
The implications behind the survey results and the incidents are alarming, but
not without explanation.
First, this administration has gotten used to making promises it thinks are okay
not to deliver. Sadly, it appears Taiwanese have also gotten used to the
cheating, even if they find it unacceptable.
Second, misconduct and malfunction are rife in Ma’s government, with the Agency
Against Corruption, established under Ma’s leadership, the Supreme Prosecutors’
Office Special Investigation Division and the Control Yuan all failing to do
anything about it.
Third, the power of media is so strong that Ma’s “Mr Clean” image sticks in
people’s mind and the KMT has succeeded in making people believe it is the party
of integrity or, at least, less corrupt than the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP).
However, Ma and his party need to understand that repeatedly flogging the dead
horse of the DPP does not justify the KMT’s widespread and persistent corruption
on both local and central government level. First they must deal with the
ill-gotten assets and prove that they are an administration as clean as Ma
promises.
Before those things happen, Ma should be very careful about voicing his motto
“integrity is my life” when those who work under him do not seem to care for
Ma’s life.
The full extent of his integrity, and that of the KMT, will no doubt only be
uncovered after Ma leaves office in 2016.
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