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Media Statement     
by Lim Kit Siang  
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(Parliament, Wednesday) : More bad news for the country and the 40-month Abdullah premiership on the anti-corruption front, although some media, whether intentionally or otherwise, seems to be presenting it as a plus and positive for Malaysia.

The Hong Kong-based Political and Economic Risk Consultancy (PERC) 2007 corruption table in Asia,  which is released every year based on a poll of expatriates working in Asia on their perceptions on corruption, is bad and grim news for all Malaysians concerned about national integrity, good governance and international competitiveness.

In a grading system with zero as the best possible score and 10 as the worst, Malaysia was ranked sixth in Asia with a score of 6.25 by PERC Corruption Asia 2007.

In 1996, Malaysia was ranked No. 4 with a score of 5, a reflection of the relentless deterioration of the corruption problem in the country over the years.

As the PERC annual corruption ranking is one of the polls used by Transparency International (TI) for its annual Corruption Perception Index (CPI), this is very bad news as the PERC 2007 Corruption Table is a forewarning that Malaysia is heading south towards No. 50 placing in TI CPI 2007 on the occasion of Malaysia’s 50^th Merdeka anniversary this year.

There are many grim warnings from the 2007 PERC Corruption Table (Asia) that Malaysia is losing out in our international competitiveness because of  our failure to enhance our good governance indicators, particularly in the war against corruption.

It will not be long before Malaysia slips further in the Asian and international corruption rankings, as we are also losing out to China and India.

In 1996, China was ranked the No.12 in Asia with a score of  8, but it has now leapt to No. 7,  breathing down the neck of Malaysia, with a score of 6.29, only 0.04 marginally less than Malaysia’s score of 6.25. India was ranked No. 8 with a score of 6.86 in 1996, and although it is ranked No. 9,  its score has improved to 6.67, or 0.4.2 behind Malaysia.

If Malaysia does not pull up our bootstraps in the fight against corruption, we will soon be losing out to China and India – and it must be regarded as a national shame and tragedy if in any  future international corruption ranking, Malaysia is regarded as so corrupt as even to lose out to China and India!

(14/3/2007)