Malaysia's Corruption Barometer Up From 48 to 49 Per Cent

PUTRAJAYA, Dec 2 (Bernama) -- Based on Transparency International (TI)'s surveys, Malaysia's Corruption Barometer (CB) improved from 48 percent last year to 49 percent this year, said Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Mohamed Nazri Aziz. Nazri, who is also minister in charge of the National Key Result Area (NKRA) on Corruption said TI's Corruption Perception Index (CPI) on Malaysia, however, dropped from 4.4 last year to 4.3 this year. "This mixed result shows that more work on corruption needs to be done," he said in a statement issued by the Performance Management and Delivery Unit (Pemandu), here, Thursday. He said the CB independently surveyed the Malaysian public's views or experiences of corruption and the results were encouraging, with 49 per cent of the people perceiving the government's fight against corruption as being effective. He said this was an improvement over last year's score of 48 per cent. "This proves that the building blocks that have been put in place in 2009 and 2010 are beginning to address the issue of petty corruption, which is what affects the public in their daily lives. "Some of the initiatives were the Name and Shame Database, to act as a deterrent to corruption offenders, the Whistleblower Protection Act, and the establishment of compliance units within the five key enforcement agencies." As for the CPI on Malaysia which decreased from 4.4 to 4.3 this year, Nazri said this put Malaysia in 60th position compared to 56th in the previous year. "It used data from 12 surveys with the Political Risk Services Country Guide, the World Justice Project Rule of Law Index and Transparency International's Bribe Payer Index (TI-BPI) being included as new sources in 2011," he said. Nazri said TI's BPI was conducted in 28 countries only and this was the first time it had been introduced into the CPI. The BPI is a new survey conducted to measure the propensity of Malaysians paying bribes to other parties outside Malaysia. "If this was not taken into account, Malaysia's score would jump to 4.5 and the country's ranking would remain at 56," Nazri said. Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) chief commissioner Abu Kassim Mohamed in the same statement said efforts had already been initiated to combat grand corruption, with the MACC putting in place a transformation programme which, among other things, aimed to strengthen its forensic investigative capability. "MACC has in fact begun a transformation programme that is beginning to be implemented in phases throughout the institution. "One of the aims is to improve forensics in order to tackle the complex systemic cases. "The MACC has to work in tandem with all other enforcement agencies as well as prosecuting bodies in order to tackle the issue of grand corruption from an enforcement angle," he said. -- BERNAMA