Malaysia drops two points in corruption index

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia dropped two points in Transparency International's (TI) Corruption Perception Index (CPI) 2017.

This means that Malaysia, which scored 47 points, went down seven places in the overall ranking of 180 countries to 62nd place.

In 2016 Malaysia ranked 55 among 176 countries, with a score of 49 out of 100.

In 2015, Malaysia was ranked 54 out of 168 countries, with a score of 50.

The index ranks countries and territories by their perceived levels of public sector corruption according to experts and business people.

It uses a scale of 0 to 100, where 0 is highly corrupt and 100 is very clean.

Datuk Akhbar Satar holds up the Corruption Perception Index 2017 during a press conference. Pic by AZLINA BT ABDULLAH /The Star

In a press conference announcing the CPI on Thursday, TI-Malaysia president Datuk Akhbar Satar (pic) said that Malaysia dropped two points because of issues surrounding several high-profile cases.

This year, the index found that more than two-thirds of countries scored below 50, with an average score of 43.

New Zealand was ranked highest with 89 points followed by Denmark with 88 points and Finland, Norway and Switzerland with 85 points.

Syria, South Sudan and Somalia ranked lowest with scores of 14, 12 and nine respectively.

In the ASEAN region, Malaysia ranked third behind Singapore, which had a score of 84; Brunei, with a score of 62.