COMMENT Slay the messenger that bears the bad news. If you can’t exactly throttle him, then hector and hassle him to the extent that he has goose pimples every time he sits down to write something about you.
That was Home Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi’s tack towards Malaysiakini at least when he held a press conference yesterday at which the media wanted comments from him about the auditor-general’s latest report on the loss of RM1.3 million worth of equipment by the police force.
The report revealed that 156 handcuffs, 44 weapons and 29 vehicles were missing when the auditors compiled an inventory of items that the force was supposed to have.
Judging from what Zahid had to say about the causes behind the loss of the items, it’s hard to see how the news portal that had apparently got the minister all worked up for its supposed penchant for “spin” could have opted to do anything more than merely report what he proposed to say in extenuation.
What Zahid said in the course of a press conference notable for the minister’s pugnacity rather than clarity was telling enough for even greenhorns among the pen-and-recorder crowd to know that they should leave bad enough alone.

“I know the loss was not due to a breach of trust, deviant acts or elements of bribery,” began Zahid in explanation of the missing items.

“It is because of carelessness and mistakes made in the line of duty,” he elaborated.
Note the use of the singular pronoun (‘I’) in the opening line of his attempted apologia on behalf of the errant in the police force.

That Zahid can vouch that the items have gone missing on account of carelessness and not any other – more sinister – motive is apparently sufficient grounds for the public to accept that that ought to be the end of the matter.

After all, Zahid felt sure that more and more people trust the force because the men and women in blue, according to the minister, have shown high integrity.

Therefore the newfangled public trust in the force would prompt them to accept Zahid’s explanation that there was nothing more devious that human carelessness behind the loss of handcuffs, weapons and vehicles.

Never mind recent reports on the seizure by police of weapons from stockpiles maintained by runners and what that said about the availability of weapons among the demimonde of the underworld.

Detached from reality
At yesterday’s press conference, Zahid decided to float in a realm detached from the reality of the surge in gangland-style executions and slayings of recent weeks.

Zahid’s line of reasoning was disheveled by the apparent emotion he carried into the press conference where he was intent on rounding in on Malaysiakini as the sultans of “spin” at the expense of the “good image” of the Home Ministry.
Sure, the auditor-general’s revelations of culpable negligence in the force over the loss of important items for their work bodes ill for the election prospects of a candidate vying to retain his top slot in the vice-presidential stakes of the dominant party in the country.

Of further embarrassment to Zahid must have been the fact that he had only just led the fight for the return of preventive detention as a measure to stem the recent surge in crime in the country.

Zahid was the government’s lead campaigner for the amendments to the Prevention of Crime Act 1959 that earlier this week were passed by Parliament in the teeth of stout opposition from the opposition and NGOs decrying the return of preventive detention in the laws of this country.
Opponents of the measure argued that given focused concentration and will by the force, there are laws enough to combat crime without resort to preventive detention.

Hence the news that members of the force have been negligent in their stewardship of important implements of their work must be an acute embarrassment to clamorers for more preventive power for the force.

Thus Zahid’s resort to the hoary, old tactic of trying to throttle the bearer of the bad news rather than deal with the exposure of weaknesses in the force only served to undermine his earlier arguments on the necessity for preventive measures for the police.

The auditor-general’s report suggests that the police need scrutiny by themselves and other appraisal bodies rather more than crime-fighting powers that are arbitrary and unmonitored.

TERENCE NETTO has been a journalist for close on four decades. He likes   the occupation because it puts him in contact with the eminent without   being under the necessity to admire them.