KUALA LUMPUR: Transparency International (TI) and the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) will be called on to brief Parliament's Public Accounts Committee (PAC) on a recent corruption report, says its chairman Wong Kah Woh (pic).
"The PAC will be calling TI to brief the committee on the Global Corruption Barometer for Asia 2020 (GCBA), which was published recently.
"We will also be calling the MACC chief commissioner to give a report and clarification over the GCBA report," Wong said on Wednesday (Dec 2).
He suggested that the effectiveness of the National Anti-Corruption Plan be reviewed as it was implemented in the time frame when the GCBA report was being compiled.
He said that MACC will also be asked on the direction it will be taking to combat corruption and to improve integrity in the public sector.
Wong said the PAC viewed the GCBA report seriously as it found that 71% of Malaysians feel that corruption in the government was a big problem.
"39% of Malaysians also felt that corruption had increased over the past 12 months," he added.
He said the report also revealed that 30% of Malaysians felt that the government was not doing its best to fight corruption.
He added that the report also said that 13% of Malaysians had admitted to having given bribes to civil servants over the past 12 months.
However, Wong noted that 74% of Malaysians felt satisfied with MACC's effort to combat graft.
"Some 36% of Malaysians surveyed viewed that MPs were corrupt, which is the highest if compared to seven other Asian countries, namely Bangladesh (18%), Taiwan (17%), Myanmar (14%), Philippines (12%), China (11%), Cambodia (6%) and Vietnam (6%)," he added.
"The PAC is of the view that these figures showed a lack of confidence among Malaysians over the integrity of the civil service and its members," he added.
TI Malaysia released the GCBA report on Nov 25 with its president Muhammad Mohan noting that 68% of Malaysians still believed that ordinary people can make a difference in fighting corruption.
Muhammad suggested that a Political Financing Act be enacted to keep check on money politics, party-hopping and election-related bribery.
Some 20,000 participants in 17 countries across Asia had taken part in the GCBA survey.
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