00:00When a corrupt official pockets a ringgit, every citizen pays the price many times over.
00:06Call it the butterfly effect.
00:08A small change, in this case, a ringgit disappearing from the public coffer, causes a massive impact.
00:15Public projects are abandoned.
00:18People suffer.
00:19Children are denied schooling.
00:22This manifests in long queues at the hospital.
00:26Children denied a place at school.
00:28Inadequate or inefficient public infrastructure.
00:33Corruption has cost Malaysians a massive amount of money.
00:37We may never catch sight of someone putting the cash in his pocket, but the impact is visible everywhere.
00:45In the 26 years from 1997 to 2022, Malaysia lost 4.5 trillion ringgit to corruption and leakages.
00:54At 15 billion a year, this is enough to cover STR and SARA aid annually for 300 years.
01:02And that is just a measly 12 ringgit and 60 cents per day for every poor Malaysian.
01:09Less than what the average office worker spends on lunch every day.
01:14For economist Tan Peck Leong, the question is, what kind of Malaysia have we lost the chance to build?
01:22MECC estimates that Malaysia lost RM277 billion in economic output over five years.
01:31No thanks to corruption.
01:32Tan points out that this is equivalent to four years of the current education ministry budget.
01:39To put the human perspective on this, more than 10,000 students or 2.6% of all candidates could
01:47not sit for the SPM exams in 2023.
01:50For many, it was because of the financial strain on their families.
01:54Tabung Haji's 12.6 billion ringgit in investment losses could have financed the pilgrimage of 378,000 Muslims.
02:04These individuals would have scrimmed to save up the RM33,000 ringgit for the hajj.
02:10As political analyst Ahmad Zaharuddin Sani Ahmad Sabri says,
02:15they have just lost the opportunity to become a guest of Allah.
02:20We, the citizens, can put a stop to this.
02:24Before we cast our votes, demand reforms that will help us curb corruption.
02:29As anti-graph watchdogs see it,
02:32merely measuring anti-corruption efforts by counting the number of arrests is after the fact.
02:38By then, public money is already lost.
02:42I'm Radeep Gill, FMT.
