I am surprised at the rather high level of incompetence glaring at us in the public sphere. I am rather disturbed that lessons have not being learnt from the national backlash seen by the March 8t elections this year. I am totally confounded that we have members of law enforcement agencies, civil servants, politicians and even ministers making statements that are far from the truth and many a time without hard facts and intelligence being collated first.

The end result always being the official version being challenged resulting in further controversies and culminating in anger and disappointment by all peace-loving and law-abiding Malaysians who cannot tolerate half-truths, blatant lies and administrative and political cover ups. A case in point would be two recent cases that are troubling:

1. The statements on the tenure and legality of Hindraf chief P Waythamoorthy’s passport and;

2. The alleged assault of four individuals, among them a woman by more than 20 FRU personnel at the fracas at Bandar Mahkota Cheras incident last Tuesday.

What is the official statement and present position in regard to the first? And as far as the Bandar Mahkota Cheras incident is concerned, who was in charge of the police operations? What was the scope of their duties that night? Was there excessive force used? Were paid thugs also participating in this fracas and assault? If so, who financed them?

It is incidents like this that make peace-loving Malaysians begin to question the neutrality of the law enforcement agencies. We have seen this on countless occasions, be it when squatter homes are demolished, places of worship torn down with brutal force, during peaceful public demonstrations or during grouses between developers and the public.

Perhaps, somewhere in the last 27 years of our nation’s history, many in the civil service seem to have forgotten the oath they had taken as public servants the operative word being ‘public’. Perhaps the word ‘public’ has been replaced with private to mean private interest? How else can you explain the alleged assault on Chang Jiun Haur who was with his sister and two other men in a car and who were allegedly dragged out of their Proton Wira and repeatedly kicked and beaten by 20 Federal Reserve Unit (FRU) personnel armed with shields and batons?

Chang was subsequently hospitalised for injuries to his face and other parts of his body. This incident coming so soon in a venue of a similar alleged assault on an elected representative. Put mildly, this is plain hypocrisy and utterly disgraceful for a government that continues to take a high religious, moral and ethical stand.

This is a continued ‘black mark’ on the nation and at a material time when another national controversy and shame emerging from the ‘infamous Lingam Tapes’ is hardly resolved.