October 17, 2012
UN Representative: Mainstream Media is misread him on Corruption
by Susan Loone@http://www.malaysiakini.com
Dimitri Vlassis (above), who is chief of UNODC’s corruption and economic crime branch, said some of his comments and responses during the press conference held in Kuala Lumpur 10 days ago were misunderstood or taken out of context.
Vlassis said he wanted to offer clarifications as consequently those comments were “misinterpreted and may have created erroneous” impressions.
According to the UN representative, he commended the MACC for organising 
the 6th annual conference and general meeting of the International Association of Anti-Corruption Authorities (IAACA) in Kuala Lumpur.
During the press conference, Vlassis said he was asked about the IAACA conference and whether it was worth the expenditure. “I responded that IAACA was the only home of anti-corruption agencies and that the conference served the very useful purpose of bringing those specialised agencies together, helping them exchange views and experiences and strengthen international cooperation.
“UNODC has been a supporter of IAACA since its establishment and considers every opportunity to achieve those goals a worthy one,” he added in a statement to Malaysiakini yesterday.
“I commended the MACC for organising the conference and thanked it for its hospitality to all participants, including to me and other colleagues from UNODC or UNDP.”
‘Anti-corruption campaigners horrified’
The MP for Ipoh Timor, Lim Kit Siang, took Vlassis to task for the comments reported by the mainstream media, particularly the Oct 7 New Straits Times report, which Lim saidhad “horrified” anti-corruption campaigners in Malaysia.
Malaysiakini had sent Lim’s statement to Vlassis via the UNODC’s regional secretariat based in Bangkok, Thailand, on Oct 10, for his response.
Lim, who is DAP national adviser, said the comment by Vlassis was a “major blow” and undermined efforts to get Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak’s government to find the political will to fight corruption, especially those involving top political and public personalities.
Vlassis was also asked to justify his statement on MACC’s performance, since the Transparency International’s (TI) Corruption Perception Index (CPI) had indicated Malaysia’s ranking and score for 2011 to be the lowest on record.
Lim had also slammed Vlassis for using the IAACA Conference to run down the credibility and usefulness of the TI CPI, by dismissing it as “outdated”, “counter-productive” and “does not serve anyone’s purpose”.
As a result of the comments, Lim added, Vlassis appeared to be sending the message to Malaysians that they do not have to be overly worried about Malaysia dropping to the worst 60th ranking with the lowest score of 4.3 in 17 years of TI’s corruption perception survey.
In response, Vlassis said he was asked about corruption in Malaysia and responded that he was not in a position to pass judgment on the matter because it was beyond his mandate and, therefore, inappropriate to evaluate a country’s performance.
No comment on review
He said Malaysia was being reviewed this year under the Implementation Review Mechanism of the UNCAC and the reviewers were the Philippines and Kenya.
The review was proceeding at a brisk pace, which was an indication of how seriously Malaysia was taking its participation in the mechanism.
“Then I said that I could not go into any further details, or comment on the results of the review, because I was bound by a duty of confidentiality imposed upon me…,” Vlassis said.
“In response to a question on Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index, I said that this was an important tool in raising awareness around the globe, lowering tolerance of corruption and keeping the issue high on the political and societal agendas,” he added.
“However, I expressed misgivings about its continued usefulness, in view of the fact that the complexity of corruption does not lend itself to efforts to reduce everything to a single figure and include it in an index.”
Vlassis said the Implementation Review Mechanism excluded the ranking of states as it has proved that such rankings may be counter-productive.
Countries, he added, should compare themselves only to themselves and not to others, as there were numerous nuances in the implementation of the convention.
He also said he did not have a meeting with Najib and merely shook the prime minister’s hand on the podium during the opening of the conference, where he spoke before Najib did.
“At the press conference, I said that in all anti-corruption efforts, in both the public and private sectors, the tone from the top was key and that Najib’s presence at the opening of the conference carried symbolic significance,” Vlassis added.
Dimitri Vlassis of the UN should know better than to speak to our mainstream media which has a track record of spinning on behalf of the government. Clarifications are worthless. The UN diplomat gives us the standard ” I have been misquoted” response and that is the cheapest trick in diplomatic speak.
We all know that the MACC is a dysfunctional and incompetent agency. And he knows that too, but he is a hypocrite. If the UN Representative in Malaysia is reading this blog, please respond. He is at fault too for not properly briefing his colleague.–Din Merican
It’s not Dimitri’s fault if the local media cannot understand what he actually said as against what he was thought to have said.
Knowing the standards of the NST, Utusan, Star etc, who went to town proclaiming 1Malaysia as clean as a whistle, what he actually said was Greek to them. So they came out with their own versi. And lo and behold, it matched the version of the UMNO government – that corruption, like crime, is actually a perception problem.
I guess with eyesight problems like this so rampant amongst the populace, vision 2020 will be set back further.
Either he has been sleeping all this while or has been paid to say so
Let me get my understanding correct …
The UN Convention Against Corruption is asking Philippines and Kenya to evaluate Malaysia. If one just check the TI corruption index, Philippines and Kenya rank 129 and 154 out of 178 countries in 2011, both are waaaaaayyyyyyyy behind Malaysia who ranks 60 out of 178.
Does it make any freaking sense to anyone that UN is asking 2 countries who are more corrupted than to evaluate Malaysia on corruption?
Does it make any freaking sense to anyone that UN is asking 2 countries who are more corrupted than to evaluate Malaysia on corruption? Jefri
because it takes a thief to catch a thief!
but they’ll accept payment from umno/bn in return for a good review.
The United nation in its present form and structure has become a tool of the Permanent Members of the Security Council. UN speak is the language of people like H. E. Mr. Vlassis. The” lu tolong saya gua tolong lu” syndorome originated form the corridoors of the United nations. For all intent and purpose it is at best a neutral organization that has failed to protect the interest of the people living in Developing Nations because its paymaster must be at all time be protected if the Organization is to survive financially. The level of annual contributions by its member states determine the level of influence that you can buy in the United nations. And we in Malaysia should not place too much weight in what they say about our country or our interest because they will not want to offfend their paymaster.
This country can only be turned around by us Malaysians. At some point we must say enough is enough. We must move to identify mistakes and problems, not with the view to punish those who had made them, but correct them and move forward. If our Government Hospitals take three weeks to produce a report on a CT Scan, which is an expensive procedure and only valid for a month incertain cases, then pull up the doctors concerned and order them to change their standard operating procedure and produce the report in critical cases such as cancer in 24 hours. There is no need to punish them because once you do that the head of department will talk about the rice bowl of the Doctor concerned and all will be lost in that administration double speak.
This is only one example. Just look around the capitial city and you will understand what I am talking about. Our housing estates that are over 20 years old have all become places where people have to co habit with piles of rubbish and clogged drrains while our Datuk Bandar is given a Tan Sri even before he assumes office. That certainly sends the wrong message.
Dimitri Vlassis looks like as if he just swallowed the canary. these fellows are also like our carma experts.
The guy didn’t want to be rude to the host. What’s the big deal here??
The world knows Malaysia is a rogue state led by a regime with no respect for the rule of law and powered and driven by corruption and abuse of power. Everytime Hollywood feels the need to throw in the name of a rogue state, it is always Malaysia.
We don’t need these guys in pin striped suits to come feed off the hospitality of any host country and after a sumptuous meal go off to the next one – only to make more meaningless statements.
Mr. Dimitri Vlassis was being diplomatic and professional but he certainly knows Malaysia has a problem on corruption, like many other countries – and his Malaysian hosts know that Vlassis knows it. The government must deal with this problem more seriously especially with cases/allegations involving top personalities.
Hiyaa!!!all I wanted to do was say thank you for spending all that money to make us all,( especially me,the UN guy ) look good,some idiot has to pay all these,they ( Malaysian MACC n Najib ) wants to look good too,so I ask them to organise laa,it’s their money What, so what’s the problem maaa,you guys better learn how to look at the Big picture,my budget is intact,I look good and doing my job, Najib,MACC & Co needs to look good,as if they are doing their job,so….???? Oouch!!!
” He said Malaysia was being reviewed this year under the Implementation Review Mechanism of the UNCAC and the reviewers were the Philippines and Kenya “.How can you blame me for saying the obvious,it’s enough for me to ” Hint2 maa!! ” that those 2 countries I chose to review Malaysia, is actually much2 better than Malaysia’s position with regards to corruption eradication,even though they are placed well below Malaysia’s ranking,you people don’t understand UN speak ke?? We are allowed to only give ” Hints “, or else our Budget gets cut, and offending UN member countries are not my cup of tea. You people think it’s easy ke?? to give vague statements especially to Host nation’s media, it has taken me years to finesse this art. You Malaysians ahh.. Nang Boh tee nang,koi boh tee kui!! Oouch!!