It is ironical that it takes a foreign government to remind Malaysia that the latter has not made much progress in the long-running investigations (seven years) into the country's biggest financial scandal — the RM10 billion Perwaja Steel (state-owned) fiasco.

In a statement (during an interview) that has been ignored by most Malaysian press, the Swiss Ambassador to Malaysia, Dr Peter Schweizer, stated that his government was still awaiting specific claims from Malaysia on illegal funds deposited in Swiss banks. This surely means that the Malaysian government has not made any meaningful move on the two Swiss accounts (one in Geneva and another in Zurich), where according to the Anti-Corruption Agency (ACA), illegal funds siphoned off from Perwaja Steel amounting to RM76 million were parked.

In the same interview, the ambassador also refuted press reports that the Swiss authorities were 'finally' cooperating on the investigation as untrue. He said: "We have been cooperating right from the very beginning".

This sharp retort was obviously aimed at the smear campaign perpetrated by Malaysian authorities to use the Swiss as scapegoat for the long delay in cracking the Perwaja scandal.

The last such occasion was when Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad visited Switzerland in June this year. In the joint press conference with the Swiss President Kaspar Villiger then, Mahathir was reported in the Malaysian press as having said that he 'finally' had the assurance from the Swiss government to unveil the secret Swiss accounts holding the illegal funds from Perwaja.

This dishonest implication of non-cooperation from the Swiss in the past was exposed when the Swiss president disclosed in the same press conference that Swiss banking secrecy laws had ceased to apply to funds accrued illegally as early as 30 years ago.

In fact, the Swiss consul in Kuala Lumpur, Ulrich Schlaesli said as much along the same lines, when he disclosed in late March this year that the Swiss Justice Department had always "responded to all requests in a fast and uncomplicated manner", and that the relevant information was actually delivered to Malaysian authorities as early as May last year.

Now that the Malaysian authorities have lost their scapegoat, what excuse do they have in dragging their feet on this scandal?

In fact, the focusing of attention on the Swiss accounts holding the RM76 million illegal funds has long been recognised as a cunning tactic to divert attention from the main scandals which culminated in the colossal losses and liabilities amounting to more than RM10 billion, incurred under criminal circumstances over a long period of fraudulent management, now absorbed by the taxpayers.

That the Malaysian authorities have failed to nail any culprit in this mountain of crimes after seven long years of investigations may appear puzzling to foreign observers, but certainly not to Malaysians who are familiar with the background. Alas, none other than Mahathir himself was personally entangled in this grand scam. And the accuser is the former deputy prime minister Anwar Ibrahim

In his police report dated July 22, 1999 (No 19625/1999), Anwar alleged that Mahathir was the de facto Perwaja boss, controlling the scandal-ridden company through his confidante, then managing director Eric Chia. Anwar stated in the report:

"Eric Chia in fact repeatedly claimed that his actions had the support and under the direction of the Prime Minister Dato Seri Dr Mahathir. And this is further substantiated with letters written by the Prime Minister himself. With the so-called mandate, the Board was sidelined, tender procedures were blatantly ignored and there were questionable, 'unsatisfactory' payments made to certain parties".

With Mahathir keeping his resolute silence on the above accusations, it is little wonder that none of the law enforcement bodies such as police, ACA and the attorney-general have acted seriously on this case.

What bothers Malaysians now is whether the 'investigations' on this scandal will also end up in the dustbin, which is the fate that meets the other two high-level scandals involving a current Cabinet minister and a former chief minister respectively.

I refer to de facto Law Minister Rais Yatim's recent announcement in Parliament that the corruption cases are closed on International Trade and Industry Minister Rafidah Aziz and former Melaka Chief Minister Rahim Thamby Chik, due to the evidences being 'unsubstantiated'.

Rais' audacity to so nonchalantly dismiss the two corruption cases in Parliament was astounding, considering the existence of irrefutable documentary evidence of the alleged corruption crime. In fact, a document from the Auditor-General's Chamber dated March 14, 1995, signed by then public prosecutor Abdul Gani Patail (now Attorney-General), clearly stated there was prima facie evidence based on ACA reports, and recommended prosecution against the two leaders. This decision to prosecute was obviously blocked by a higher authority later on.

When Rais announced the decision to drop the cases, whose decision was it? Rais or the AG?

Since the AG had earlier confirmed the existence of prima facie evidence and decided to go for prosecution, it would be completely out of order for him to arbitrarily reverse his position now without giving the proper grounds for such reversal. And why didn't the AG himself make the announcement?

If Rais was the one who made the decision, he would have breached the Constitution, as only the AG and nobody else is empowered under the Constitution to decide on whether prosecution should proceed.

Rais' daring assault on the Constitution, carried out in the very sanctum of democracy, namely Parliament, is exemplary of the absence of the rule of law in this Country under Barisan Nasional (BN) government.

With BN's continued hegemony of political power, where checks and balances are completely absent, one should not have any illusion that we can hold the BN leadership to account for its own high crimes and corruption, which certainly include the colossal RM10 billion Perwaja scandal.