Cronyism has become a deeply endemic practice in Malaysia, affecting all levels of government.

Cronyism can be defined as the appointment of friends and associates to positions of authority, without proper regard to their qualifications.

For too long, our government has been contracting out certain types of work and services to contractors who are highly incompetent and don’t at all provide reliable service to the people.

A lot of this involves essential services that are imperative for public safety and well-being including grass cutting, drain cleaning, maintenance as well as repairing of faulty streetlights and faulty facilities at public spaces.

Cronyism in Malaysia has resulted in:

■ Poor quality of work and shoddy services, resulting in frequent breakdowns and recurring problems.

■ The dragging on and delaying of various projects and repair work.

■ Huge wastage of government funds.

Such poor quality of work and high levels of incompetency not only jeopardises the public’s safety and comfort, but also cause bad experiences for foreign tourists.

This is particularly damaging for us as tourism is crucial to our economic growth.

How much longer do we have to deal with this?

Isn’t it well past time such important services be solely conducted by the government instead of being contracted out to cronies?

This move can help restore much-needed quality and competency to such services.

It also can save much-needed government funds as whatever projects or services will be efficiently carried out without any delays or breakdowns.

Whenever the government is urged to implement significant systemic reforms such as much higher minimum wages, a pension scheme for the elderly, greater strengthening of the public bus system, and providing much higher financial assistance to the rural poor, the government’s main excuse is a severe lack of funds.

As such, doesn’t it make perfect sense to immediately eradicate cronyism and other forms of endemic corrupt practices within the system to save more funds? Or is this the usual case of lacking political will?

When it comes to the public’s safety and comfort, the quality and competency of important services must never be compromised.

If our government was truly responsible and genuinely cared for the people, they would be the one conducting such important services and making sure it’s of high quality.

The government must seriously abolish cronyism at levels once and for all!

No longer must important public services be contracted out!

(Raveen Jeyakumar is a writer who is passionate about social and environmental issues, whose work can be found at https://substack.com/@fixingoursociety.)