Malaysia down a notch in TI corruption index

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia has dropped a rung in Transparency International’s (TI) corruption perception index, but its head here says this is no setback as the fight against graft has been stepped up.

TI’s Corruption Perception Index (CPI) 2016 ranks the country as 55th among 176 countries, with a score of 49 out of 100, against 54 out of 168 countries with 50 score in 2015.

TI-Malaysia president Datuk Akhbar said the one-point slide was “not much”.

The re-charged Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) was proving its effectiveness in tackling high-profile cases last year, he added.

“It has been doing very well. The raids by MACC saw millions of ringgit being recovered, besides the arrest of high-profile figures,” Akhbar told a press conference on Wednesday.

Akhbar said MACC needed to focus on corrupt politicians as well to improve the country’s CPI ranking and score.

He said TI-Malaysia also wants the Government to introduce corporate liability to hold a company liable if its employee committed a crime.

Akhbar suggested a separation of the role of the Attorney-General as Public Prosecutor, to ensure integrity at the prosecution level.

On the CPI, Malaysia ranked third last year in the region, below Singapore and Brunei which had a global ranking of seven and 41 with respective scores of 84 and 58.

Indonesia took the fourth spot within the region with its global ranking of 90 and score of 37. Other countries such as Laos and Myanmar also had improved rankings, coming in at 123 and 136 with scores of 30 and 28 respectively.