Why do we need the Official Secret Act (OSA)?
There are legitimate secrets to be kept. Reading from the act one can feel that the main purpose of the Act is to stop spying.
However, how an “Official Secret” is defined could lead to misuse of this Act. Presently, an “Official Secret” is defined as any document that is stamped “RAHSIA” (secret). With this definition, corruption could be easily protected by the Act (by just stamping any thing that they do not want people to know). An example is the “M*gg* Mee Scandal” of which it was supplied to the Army at whopping price.
Freedom of Information is NOT all about picking on the government. In fact, it is about public interest e.g. Toxic Dumping, Occupational Safety and Health, and Environment. For example, there is a hypothesis that the serious haze in Malaysia is not caused by Sumatra alone but because of the chemical reaction between Malaysian air pollutants and the smoke from Sumatra. If some of the classified information about the haze were not released, researchers could not determine the real cause of it. That hinders our ability to act on our part to solve or reduce the haze problem.
To gather information like this, now even researchers has to employ a full time staff whose job is to buy coffee for officials in Putrajaya. It is really a huge waste of the country’s resources, and this can be solved if there is freedom of information (FOI).
FOI is actually in the interest of the government, as the public now do not trust the government any more. In the SARS incident, the government did everything RIGHT and reported the truth BUT nobody believed the government statistics but rather listen to rumors. This lack of information creates panic. FOI improves ability of government to control panic by gaining the TRUST from the people.
When government is discredited, it’s harder for the government to rule. The recent case of Mat Rempits attacking the police station shows their disrespect to government institution. FOI is in the BN government’s own interest to re-gain the trust of its people.
