Open house incentives

OVER the span of more than a decade, in lectures on development studies at university, during missions at the World Bank, and now in corporate training workshops on fraud attended by directors of public listed companies, I have encountered a consistent lesson on the issue of culture and corruption. It is the idea that certain cultural traditions of some societies lend themselves to corruption: in particular, the practice of giving presents during particular festivals. In Malaysia, we do not have to look very hard to suspect juicy contracts being awarded after fat angpows or duit raya are received. Of course, such giftgiving is not just confined to aspects of formal culture, but also in informal ways such as perks and access for business purposes on the golf course.

There are many blurred lines here, of course, and it can be difficult to ascertain to what extent deals are motivated by business sense on the one hand or friendship or fealty or the other. Even so, one could argue that there are benefits to deals being made in such ways: personal ties could translate to higher levels of trust and efficiency, for instance. But the more likely scenario is that such private arrangements are entered into to benefit a small number of people disproportionately to other stakeholders, and often a facade of following the usual procedures will have to be concocted to make it look legitimate – or the law will have to be circumvented in order to make it happen. Numerous people might have to be bribed in this process.

And once ‘ everybody does it’, what might have seemed unethical some time ago gradually becomes morally neutral. People will justify such practices by the need to keep their own careers or feed their own families, and convince themselves that the problem is not them, it is ‘the system’. This further normalises blatantly corrupt behaviour.

If only private money and private companies answerable to informed shareholders are involved in such transactions, one could argue that such methods of awarding tenders are acceptable: two parties should be able to voluntarily transact with each other on any terms they deem fit. But it is different when public money and public institutions are involved. The shareholders are the citizens and they deserve to know how their taxes, or revenue derived from the country’s natural resources, are spent. In theory, the law defines how much transparency there should be: spending over certain amounts needs to go through more scrutiny, and projects of certain kinds explicitly require an open tender process. But in practice, there are ways for the decision-makers to skirt even these requirements, too.

Not all corrupt transactions are about money, of course. Many are incentivised by the ability to sway public institutions to protect themselves from their own corrupt activity. And so, officials are persuaded to investigate some wrongdoings but not others, to recommend certain people to key positions, to draw electoral boundaries according to particular shapes, or to interpret the constitution in a way as to enable unprecedented appointments.

I write about this now not because there have been any recent revelations or events that have suddenly caused a realisation, but because of the public way in which these activities are being discussed and observed in another of our cultural peculiarities: the open house. Of all our festivities, it is Hari Raya Aidilfitri that announces the longest period of opportunities for people with different intentions to mingle with others in a public way without having to justify themselves. If suspected collaborators share lemang together, it’s a happy coincidence. If political enemies chat in a queue for roast lamb, it’s in the spirit of goodwill.

Open houses – especially the big political or corporate ones – have always been fertile ground for sociological research, but this year the conversations, body language, seating positions, and even the scheduling of the arrival of guests provides much material for the political analyst too. Observe carefully and you might piece together which dynamics are likely to be key in shaping our country from this Syawal to the next Syawal.

Very little has to do with the policies designed for the benefit of the electorate. Many of the politicians have already assumed that they can be incentivised in the same way as they incentivise everyone else, especially if they carve them up into manageable groups defined not just by race and religion, but beneficiaries of particular policies or schemes.

But at the open houses too, there is evidence that suggests such assumptions are wrong. Perhaps the majority really are there for the most innocent of motives, like eating as much satay as possible.

Tunku Zain Al-Abidin is founding president of Ideas.