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Saturday September 19, 2009

Your 10 questions


Former Inspector-General of Police Tun Hanif Omar fields the 10 questions posed to him by our readers.

You retired from the force after being in service for over three decades. How did you cope with life as a civilian and was that easy to do? – Azhar Nasir, Bukit Jelutong

Within months after my retirement, I was invited to sit on the boards of eight listed companies – a few too many but they covered a broad spectrum dealing in businesses that I had never been exposed to, to any extent. It was a steep learning curve for me but my forte as a successful manager of men and situations for 35 years in the police, and my wide reading since childhood, plus my legal knowledge, stood me in good stead. And the introduction to economics and banking which I received in university for three years in the mid-50s, although hazy by that time, all came back in time and has been useful.

You were handpicked by the late Tun Razak to lead the police at a very young age, by-passing your seniors. Do you agree that meritocracy outweighs seniority? – Aris Naim

Off-hand I would agree that meritocracy should be the order of the day in all spheres. But, as between two persons of equal merit, the more senior should normally be given greater consideration unless, for example, the job requires a level of physical fitness which the senior person does not have or will soon be losing. Usually, though not always, depending on a person’s career grooming, the senior person should have had a better exposure to experience. But merit must not be based on academic qualifications alone. A person who spends seven or eight years in university picking up a diploma, then a general degree until he gets his doctorate may have an impressive academic qualification but he would have no experience in any practical field and no network of industry collaborators to speak of.

A person’s superior academic qualification should be good only at the point of first entry. This is the accepted practice in advanced countries and used to be so in PDRM. It probably still is. Performance on the job, dedication, versatility, suitability or fitness for the job, and empirical evidence of a likelihood of being able to discharge a higher post, are the more important criteria for assessing merit.

What are your life philosophies, your guiding principles at the personal, family, community and public levels? – Samsuri Arshad

From earliest childhood my father succeeded in making himself my idol. I grew up wanting only to emulate him: be a good man, a fearless God-fearing man whose sense of duty to Allah transcends everything else.

Then, I find that everything else simply falls into its proper place. Instantly you know what’s right and what’s wrong and you have no fear to do what is right even at serious risks to yourself. You instinctively abhor the evil doings around you.

It becomes difficult for you to live in fear, or to be sycophantic, racist, cruel, unjust, exploitative or xenophobic. Every time that I might have veered towards any of those, the memory of my dad and his values would confront me. He’s been gone 57 years but my memory of him is as sharp and fresh as when I was 13 years old.

Automatically I am inclined to search for the truth and to not swallow whole, unexamined, what people feed me with. I therefore become by nature, objective and open-minded by early upbringing.

At the community and public levels, I always give my best service because in my childhood my father had encouraged me to give of my best always, no matter what the endeavour.

Raised very closely as a Muslim, I always have to place the common good above my interest or that of my family’s. Thus, it was not difficult for me to act against those who imperilled the community’s safety and welfare when I was a police officer – although always within the law. Then and now, I try to give the needy a leg-up in life – better that than showering my children with unnecessary comfort.

Some senior officers have had their contract extended even after reaching the compulsory retirement age. You retired on the dot at 55. What is your opinion about this practice? – Shamsuddin Basri

It is government’s absolute right to get the best man for the job for the sake of the country’s delivery system, particularly in respect of all the crucial leading posts.

As a general rule, no public servant’s tenure should be extended beyond the compulsory retirement age unless his continued service in his post is essential to the government and a successor is not quite ready. The option should always be with the government because it’s the government who is responsible to the people. I can’t imagine a responsible government cutting its own throat by retaining a public servant who can’t deliver the goods or appoint a successor who is not ready.

Having said all that, I feel that good management demands that a proper succession plan should be in place at all times. In respect of PDRM, it is not just the IGP’s responsibility but more so that of the police force commission.

You always look very debonair and dapper in pictures and public events. Do you think Malaysian men lack in personal grooming? – Victoria Tham, Penang

I think looks and grooming are very important because they help to create the image of yourself and your organisation.

If people like to deal with and tend to trust smartly but soberly dressed people, then surely that’s the way. Too often today employers say they find too many young Malaysians too casually dressed to the point of being unkempt and looking careless.

That’s partly the reason why some job-seekers fail at their interviews – repulsion at first sight. Parents, teachers, university lecturers should guide their students on a proper dress sense and general grooming.

No use grinding out graduates who cannot nail down a job because of their attitude towards grooming

The police force has also been feeling a lot of heat from the public. What would you do if you were still chief or police or what is your advice to the current IGP? – K C Chai, Kuala Lumpur

I am in touch with the IGP and his deputy from time to time. They have to improve criminal intelligence gathering and even last night (Sept 15), I chatted with deputy IGP on the need to have an unorthodox approach in the same way that we did before, seeing that today’s detectives are not making sufficient headway. The police are doing the right thing by identifying the hot spots and concentrating resources there. But their men must be motivated, disciplined and focused, and there is still room for improvement here. But they must be aware that the hot spots are the targets of the miscreants, not necessarily their breeding grounds or refuge. So they need the corollary of good intelligence.

Thirdly they need to harness the people a bit more, as I did with the first two years of Rukun Tetangga. You can’t harness the people for too long. They have their own tasks to do and their interest cannot be sustained. Finally, the leadership qualities and skills of the subordinate police officers must improve.

How would you rate the police force today and during your time? – Sanita, Penang

The way to rate a police force is not by sophistication or size of its resources, human or otherwise, but by how well it has performed. And the determination of that is not by self- assessment but by public perception.

Every police commander must recognise this and try to achieve public satisfaction. That calls for understanding of what the public as a whole wants and then being able to deliver it to satisfaction. “To satisfaction” are key words.

It’s difficult for me to express a balanced opinion on the force of today and that of my time. I knew the latter warts and all as I shaped it and led it for so long. On the other hand I know the present force only from public perception. The present force has many more graduate officers than before. It has several PhD holders when in my time there couldn’t have been more than two officers with doctorates.

It has better communications and it facilities and vehicles but, as I said, public perception of its performance is the sole accurate criteria.

What has changed with the police? Have they worsened or improved? – Jennifer, Penang

Chatting up current police leaders who had served under me in their younger days, they bemoan the lower quality of commitment that they get from today’s recruits at all levels. So, they have their work cut out to motivate the new generation of officers.

My own feeling is that this is true across the board in Malaysia. If the commitment is strong, the officers will be self-motivated to do their job well. Corruption which has afflicted Malaysian society at very high levels has been democratised as a result. Until and unless PDRM and MACC can roll this trend back drastically, the present police force cannot win back the esteem that the people generally had for the police force during my time.

Mind you my PDRM was far from perfect but the public then as now isn’t looking for perfection but for satisfaction. I think it helped that I was not so defensive about my PDRM.

You are the longest serving IGP, which makes you partly responsible for the present state of affairs within the force. What do you wish you had done or undone during your time, on the wisdom of hindsight? – Adam Abdullah

The mere fact that I was the IGP for a very long time cannot per se make me partly responsible for the present state of affairs within PDRM. One has to look at what’s wrong today and see whether it’s traceable to my omission or commission.

For example, I probably failed to trace and sack every single corrupt officer in my time: that would have been impossible but I don’t think I was wanting in my effort.

Empirically the public would agree that the relative lack of ostentatious living among officers during my time helped to create the perception that there was less corruption, also the greater reliability of the attention they could get from PDRM as a whole.

I also contributed unintentionally to the exposure of some of my officers to some housing developers when in the course of wanting to solve my men’s long-festering housing woes, I suggested in reducing reliance of the JKR to build or supervise the building of our quarters; instead we suggested to the ministry and central agencies to augment the JKR effort by purchasing ready-made housing from housing developers. This brought line officers in direct contact with developers who were vying to sell their products during a housing glut.

What do you love most doing now? – Angeline Lim, Petaling Jaya

Two things I most love to do now: to continue to improve in doing the things I am doing now because I cannot countenance being idle and to be around my grandchildren and my great-grandchild: they are an absolute joy!

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