Malaysia drops in corruption survey, says Transparency Malaysia (Updated)

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia has dropped a notch in the latest Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) 2016 survey said the Transparency International-Malaysia (TI-M).
Its president Datuk Akhbar Satar said Malaysia has been ranked 55 among 176 countries in the survey with a score of 49 out of 100.
In the CPI 2015 survey Malaysia was ranked 54 out of 168 countries with a score of 50 out of 100. Under the TI-M scale 100 is perceived as very clean and a score of 0 is ranked as highly corrupted.
The survey measures perception of corruption in 176 countries.
Akbar said the one-point drop is not so significant as the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC)'s under a new management has proven its effectiveness in tackling high profile cases last year.
"The raids by MACC also saw their officers seize millions of ringgit and arresting high profile figures.
"These are among the factors that contributed to the rankings," Akhbar told a press conference at the launch of CPI 2016 at the Royal Selangor Club, here, yesterday.
Despite dismissing the significance, Akhbar expressed his concerns with the latest decline saying that there is a lack of political will in tackling corruption with merely lip service instead of walking the talk.
"Do not just nab (corrupt) government officers, the authorities should look at nabbing (corrupt) politicians as well. While we keep hearing (allegations of corrupt politicians), we are still waiting for arrests," he said.
To improve the Malaysia's rankings, Akhbar recommended several measures including:
*introducing corporate liability provision into current legislation.
*making ISO 37001 Anti-Bribery Management System a pre-requisite for all government suppliers.
*introducing access to information laws at federal and state level
Malaysia had improved in the annual rankings from 54 in CPI 2012 survey to 50 in 2014 CPI survey prior to yesterday's results.
While the government aspired for Malaysia to be ranked 30 by CPI 2020, Akhbar said that the target is not impossible should several objectives be accomplished.
The global (CPI) 2016 survey saw neighbouring countries such as Singapore, Laos and Myanmar making further improvement in their rankings.
Singapore tops the list being ranked 7 with a score of 84. While Laos improved its ranking to 123 compared to 139 in 2015 and Myanmar is ranked 136, a 11-point increase compared to the previous year.