The shocking results of Transparency International’s (TI) Corruption Perception Index (CPI) 2011 with Malaysia plunging to the worst ranking in 17 years from No. 23 in 1995 to No. 60 in 2011 as well as the worst score of 4.3 has raised many questions about the Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s transformation programme and the Corruption NKRA (National Key Result Areas).
I warned yesterday that based on TI CPI trend in the past 17 years, Malaysia risks being overtaken by China as a less corrupt country in four years’ time by 2015, leaving Malaysia around the 80th ranking with a score below 4.
But Malaysia also face other risks as in forfeiting our position as the leading OIC country in development, rule of law, accountability and transparency.
Malaysia is not only backsliding in anti-corruption efforts when compared to other countries in the Asia-Pacific, we are also been overtaken by countries in other parts of the world including the OIC countries.
A decade ago, Malaysian leaders pride themselves as leading the most technologically advanced and most industrially developed country in the Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC), towering head and shoulders over other countries in the OIC on the rule of law, accountability, transparency and integrity.
This leading position of Malaysia was acknowledged in the early annual TI CPIs.
In the 1996 TI CPI, where Malaysia was ranked No. 26 out of 54 countries with a score of 5.32, Malaysia was ahead the other three OIC countries cited, viz Jordan (No. 30 with score 4.89), Turkey (No.33 with score 3.54) and Egypt (No. 41 with score 2.84).
However, 16 years later, Malaysia is ranked behind six OIC countries in the TI CPI 2011, even behind Jordan and just one step ahead of Turkey, viz:
| Countries | TI CPI | |
|---|---|---|
| ranking | score | |
| Qatar | 22 | 7.2 |
| UAE | 28 | 6.8 |
| Bahrain | 46 | 5.1 |
| Oman | 50 | 4.8 |
| Kuwait | 54 | 4.6 |
| Jordan | 56 | 4.5 |
| Arabia | 57 | 4.4 |
| Malaysia | 60 | 4.3 |
| Turkey | 61 | 4.2 |
OIC countries breathing down the neck of Malaysia to overtake us in future TI CPI include Turkey and Tunisia (73 with score 3.8).
It is pertinent to note the TI CPI of the Arab Spring countries, viz: Tunisia (73 score 3.8), Morocco (80 score 3.4), Egypt (112 score 2.9), Yemen(164 score 2.1) and Libya (168 2.0).
Malaysia is behind six countries in Africa – Botswana (32 score 6.1) Cape Verde (41 score 5.5) Mauritius (46 score 5.1) Rwanda (48 score 5.0) Seychelles (50 score 4.8) and Namibia (57 score 4.4).
Has the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak the political will to stop the rot of corruption in Malaysia, reverse Malaysia’s slide down the lowest-ever CPI ranking and score or is Malaysia destined to fall further down the slippery slope to the bottom, losing out to even more Asian, OIC and African countries on the TI CPI in the years to come?
#1 by ENDANGERED HORNBILL on Thursday, 8 December 2011 - 3:19 pm
What is this Corruption Index?
Malaysia has no Corruption Index becos we don’t know what Corruption is!
Ministers take projects for their families becos the common people are just too plain stupid and uneducated after studying in the SRK and SMK schools-lah. That is not corruption. UMNO is just giving to those “wiinnable” entrepreneurs.
#2 by cseng on Thursday, 8 December 2011 - 4:23 pm
Is a perception index, with BN as goverment, leading by Umno, how to improve the perception.
BN is the new term for corruption, you want corruption, you vote BN, that simple.
Taib, Sharizat, PKFZ, Ex Selangor MB, justify their act thru. MACC investigation, AG’s NFA, would lead the CPI to 0, eventualy, siok sendiri.
Najib says, CPI is 0, so what! we have ETP, NKRA, ABCD, EFG, Idris Jala and Khor Tsu Khoon… We are good! and 1 Malaysia.
#3 by cseng on Thursday, 8 December 2011 - 4:28 pm
My CM, by the name of LGE. He said no brithday gift! please. This is what accountability and perception all about. This CPI score 10/10.
Not like Sharizat, my family got nothing to do with me! I leave it to the PM. That score 0/10.
If you don’t care about perception, stay away from public office, be a tree, sharizat.
#4 by dagen on Thursday, 8 December 2011 - 6:03 pm
/// Has the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak the political will to stop the rot of corruption in Malaysia … ///
Oh yeah trust the PM and her husband to open their big mouths and make ridiculous declarations. There will be more acronyms and more laws and more deployments and very importantly, more money pumped into here and there. Billions of ringgit later the index will still go down further.
Jib Jib Boleh.
#5 by yhsiew on Thursday, 8 December 2011 - 6:44 pm
A son talks to his father, “Papa, you ask me not to smoke, why do you smoke?” This is the kind of graft-busting scenario in Bolihland.
#6 by ENDANGERED HORNBILL on Thursday, 8 December 2011 - 9:06 pm
Former Illinois governor sentenced to 14 yrs jail.
Judge Zagel said :A corrupt governor can be “more damaging than any other office in the United States, except that of the president,” before announcing the sentence.
Isn’t it time that Malaysia begin by putting some ministers and MBs in jail.
Maybe we have to wait till after GE 13; then MACC will have to obey its new masters. But MACC will have to be fair and just and not throw MBs and Ministers out of the windows, ok!
#7 by monsterball on Friday, 9 December 2011 - 3:45 am
There is no doubt…under Najib..it’s getting worst and worst….and he is powerless.
UMNO b is daily interested to keep fooling Malaysians to gather votes more than anything else.
They know this kind of news…means nothing to the Malaysians who are less educated.
However..they forgot..their well educated sons and daughters will explain to their parents.
#8 by Bigjoe on Friday, 9 December 2011 - 4:17 am
Soon we have to look for another basketcase country other than Zimbabwe to compare…
#9 by Loh on Friday, 9 December 2011 - 7:15 am
What about corrupted Attorney General, Emasculated judges, corrupted cabinet where members could have the Prime Ministers deceived, or pretended to be deceived, and all these are in one country? It is not a police state, it is a gangster state!
#10 by dagen on Friday, 9 December 2011 - 9:18 am
I would suggest to the TI people to divide the long list of countries into two seperate lists and call them: (1) premier list and (2) pariah list.
Without me saying anything more, bet you people could see what I am hitting at.
#11 by k1980 on Friday, 9 December 2011 - 10:14 am
http://www.malaysiakini.com/letters/183362
There were 32 NON-Islamic countries that fared better in terms of Islamicity than did Malaysia.
Amongst those 32 countries are all those evil western countries that Umno would have us believe are hell bent on destroying those Islamic principles which make Malaysia such a wonderful country.
And the news gets even worse, the OIC countries for all their oil wealth and the fact that they make up 22 percent of the world’s population can currently generate only six percent of the world’s GDP and nine percent of global exports.
To further illustrate the disappointing level of economic development in the Islamic world, we can compare the OIC GDP of US$3.2 trillion with that of the United States, which stood at US$13.9 trillion in 2007.
This essentially means that the entire Islamic world’s GDP is approximately only 23 percent of that of the United States.
#12 by rockdaboat on Friday, 9 December 2011 - 11:33 am
Our so-called leaders don’t know what is corruption!
#13 by waterfrontcoolie on Saturday, 10 December 2011 - 10:17 pm
In their mind, it is not corruption, it is gatekeeper’s fee. After all it is only 30%, be it NEP quota or whatever you may name it. It haseached a stage that nomenclature is no longer important; call it by any name just hand over the cash! I am not at all surprised by the speeches at the recent UMNO Assembly; they openly demanded to for a hand in the national treasury in the name of NEP!