The Prime Minister and his entire Cabinet must explain Malaysia’s poor Corruption Perception Index (CPI) ranking as it cannot continue to remain “the elephant in the room” for the government, Lim Kit Siang said today.
In a report released by Transparency International (TI), Malaysia’s CPI dropped for the third year running, slipping to 4.3 this year, leaving it in 60th place out of 183 countries compared with 37th place when Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi took over as prime minister in 2003.
“Datuk Seri Najib Razak should give a full and detailed explanation as to why after 32 months of his premiership, Malaysia has suffered the national ignominy of the worst-ever ranking of No. 60 and lowest-ever score of 4.3 in TI CPI 2011 for the past 17 years.
“Most important of all, what is the Cabinet response, strategy or ‘game-changer’ to the TI CPI 2011 on Malaysia’s worst ranking and lowest score in 17 years so that Malaysia could be one of the world’s least corrupt nations?” Lim (picture) said in a statement.
The Ipoh Timur MP pointed out that despite an increase in budgets, resources for the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) as well as the flurry of government reform measures, graft perception was at its “worst ever.”
He said that matter was not even mentioned once during the Umno general assembly last week.
TI Malaysia (TI-M) deputy president Mohammad Ali noted that Malaysia’s CPI continued to decline as “elements of state” that facilitated “grand corruption” were still prevalent.
Second Finance Minister Datuk Seri Ahmad Husni Hanadzlah said Malaysia’s dip in a recent Corruption Perception Index (CPI) was “subjective” and “questionable”, adding that measures based on perception should not be used as the ultimate gauge.
