Malaysia gets lowest ever graft ranking, same as Cuba

Malaysia has recorded its lowest ever ranking on the Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) with the latest figures revealing that it is now on par with Cuba.

Both countries scored 47 on a scale of zero to 100, with zero being highly corrupt and 100 being very clean.

Malaysia and Cuba both ranked 62 under the 2017 index, which was launched by Transparency International Malaysia (TI-M) in Kuala Lumpur today.

In 2016 CPI, Malaysia scored 49 points and was ranked 55th.

Other countries with similar scores to Malaysia include Saudi Arabia and Croatia (49), Greece, Jordan and Romania (48), Montenegro and Sao Tome and Principe (46) and as Hungary and Senegal (45).

Previously, Malaysia scored 49 points and was ranked 55th in the 2016 CPI.

“We dropped seven steps. It is quite bad. We should be better than them (Cuba), better than Africa,” said TI-M president Akhbar Satar during the launch.

Malaysia’s ranking of 62nd marks the country’s lowest rank ever since the CPI was first introduced in 1994.

It should be noted, however, that in 1995, the index only scored 41 countries with the number of countries being reviewed steadily rising each year. In the latest index, 180 countries are included.

Akhbar said that Malaysia slipped in the CPI 2017 due to the 1MDB issue, the SRC International Sdn Bhd case, the RM2.6 billion donation, the Federal Land Development Authority (Felda) scandal, the Sabah water scandal as well as the conviction of whistle-blowers such as PKR vice-president Rafizi Ramli.

“(These cases) are examples of the public, investors and the business community losing faith in our system.

“Furthermore, the political and corruption situation in the country also affected the ranking.

“However, if not because of MACC’s aggressiveness in conducting investigations and making arrests to deter corruption in the country, the ranking could have been further eroded,” he explained.

Malaysia’s score and ranking had been slowly improving from 2012 to 2014, but it began to worsen in 2015.

“Once 1MDB came into the picture, then (Malaysia’s ranking on) the index began to fall,” he said.

The situation was made worse, he said, because the case was not pursued and resolved, creating a sense of impunity with theft of public funds going unpunished.

“If you do not resolve the scandals in the country, of course (Malaysia’s place on) the CPI will continue to fall,” he said.

The country is suffering from an integrity crisis, he added, pointing to the rising number of high-profile corruption cases involving those in power as well as the number of youths being arrested for corruption.

He said MACC’S arrests in the last three years show that 54 percent of about 2,000 people arrested were youths between the ages of 20 and 40.

“This is very sad because they are going to take care of the country. So what is wrong with them?

“We have to study what is the root cause. Is it because of upbringing, the school system, the economy or is it because of our leadership? We do not know,” Akhbar said.

Among Southeast Asian countries, Singapore and Brunei were placed sixth and 32nd respectively with scores of 84 and 62.

Malaysia was ahead of Indonesia and Thailand, both sharing a global ranking of 96 with a score of 37.

Cambodia placed last in the region with a global ranking of 161 with a score of 21.- Mkini