DATIN YASMIN: CORRUPTION MUST GO
Recently very much to my attention, many parties have been raising issues pertaining to corruption and invariably repeating an old news carried by International media alleging Malaysia was corruption champion.
The latest was by Bingkor Assemblyman Jeffrey Kitingan in an article published in Free Malaysia Today’s news portal titling “Electing Prime Minister not enough – Corruption Must Go’.
In the article he was quoted saying Corruption was so bad in Malaysia that a leading US newspaper reported that Malaysia was the world champion in corruption and he stressed that corruption must go.
Yes! I agree with what YB that corruption must go but it is unfair for him to repeat the same redundant statement without explaining the current state of corruption in the country to the rakyat.
As an assemblymen elected by the people, it is his duty to explain instead of just making an impractical allegations on corruption without gathering appropriate and latest facts.
The same issue was raised by our former Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad during a press conference in March where he picked the statement circulated by Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post in December 2012.
The bias statement has brought a negative perception to Malaysia as well as Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC).
I do agree that corruption is still an unsolved problem in our country but to constantly repeating that we was a corruption champion is certainly not something to be proud of by our leaders especially.
Malaysia had laddered to 50th place in the Corruption Perception Index in 2014 globally, this shows the government’s commitment in ensuring Malaysia to achieve its target to reach among top 30 countries in the CPI report by 2020.
Besides that, Malaysia’s economic freedom score is 70.8, making its economy the 31st freest in the 2015 index and the index also proved that we had risen to the ‘mostly free’ category since 2011.
The analysis by Asian Intelligence report done in Asia, United States and Australia revealed perception score towards Malaysia had improve since 2006. Malaysia score in 2006 was 6.13 and has improved by 4.96 this year.
There are ample of studies and analysis have been done on Corruption in Malaysia over the years and the positive results is an evidence that Malaysia have been improving and serious in their effort to eradicate graft.
A study by the Bribe Payers Index 2011 also showed Malaysia’s score is 7.6, making us on a par with Hong Kong, a country that frequently taken as an example in terms of freedom and high performance in fighting corruption.
To explain further, Global Competitiveness Index 2014-2015 had showed Malaysia had laddered to level 20 from 144 countries measured after the government implemented diversified changes in 2009.
It also stated ‘In a region plagued by corruption and red tape, Malaysia stands out as one of the very few countries that have been relatively succefull at tackling the issue, as part of its economic and government Transformation Programme.’
The co-founder of Tranparency-International Michael Herhsman recently has also said that has taken a holistic approach to combat corruption and has all the required resources to combat corruption.
Hersman also stressed that the government can’t stop the corruption without the help of the people. The people must be willing to say no when it comes to bribery and reports attempt of bribery.
I am not denying that corruption do not exist in our country but I believe the government have been doing everything possible to overcome the issue and lets not keep on repeating the same old story.
Datin Yasmin Yusman Yumisran
Political Analysts, Kuching, Sarawak
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