TI: Improve nation's ranking by nabbing 'big fish'
Malaysiakini.com
May 15, 2008 

If Malaysia wants to improve its Transparency International's Corruption Perception Index (CPI) ranking, there has to be more evidence of actual prosecutions against the corrupt ‘big fish’.
MCPX

According to corruption watchdog TI-Malaysia, there has be a number of high-profile arrests before the present poor perceptions of corruption in Malaysia can change for the better.

transparency international malaysia corruption 061207 ramon“The perception that corruption is prevalent among the nation's political and business elite is widespread,” lamented TI-Malaysia president Ramon V Navaratnam.

Navaratnam said it was not “helpful nor useful to compare Malaysia's CPI score with the poor performers.

“We should compare ourselves to the countries that have performed much better and even the best in the world.”

Navaratnam added that while the government has undertaken several sound initiatives recently to strengthen the institutions to fight corruption, there has to be a “greater sense of priority and urgency”.

what malaysia should do to improve its ranking“The awarding of huge infrastructure development projects to selected business entities on the basis of negotiated contracts, without open and competitive tendering and the giving of special licenses to certain privileged groups does not help to improve the ... perception of government's  efforts towards greater transparency and the degree of its will to combat corruption.”

Malaysia improved its ranking marginally in the CPI 2007 from 44 to 43, ending a five-year downward spiral.

But this has to be taken in the context of an inclusion of 17 new countries in the latest ranking bringing the total to 180.

Kit Siang ticked off by PM

Yesterday, Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi rejected the need for a royal commission to investigate the reasons behind Malaysia's fall in the CPI index from from 23 in 1995 to 44 and 43 in 2006 and 2007 respectively.

Abdullah, in his written reply to DAP leader Lim Kit Siang in Parliament, ticked off the veteran politician for failing to understand that Malaysia cannot be judged solely on its CPI ranking because the total number of countries in the index change from year to year.

"For example, in 1995, there were 41 countries that took part in the index. In 2006, that number increased to 163 countries, and in 2007 to 179," said Abdullah.

Abdullah also said Malaysia had improved its ranking in terms of corruption perception when it was higher than 44 percent of the countries on the index in 1996 to being better than 73 percent and 76 percent of the countries on the index in 2006 and 2007 respectively.

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