AZAM Baki should resign for questioning the veracity, credibility and reliability of the corruption perception index (CPI) by global anti-corruption watchdog Transparency International (TI), DAP chairman Lim Guan Eng said.

He said it was shocking that the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) chief commissioner rubbished TI’s CPI.

This, Lim said, was presumably because Malaysia has been downgraded with a low ranking due to MACC’s dismal and pathetic performance in combating corruption.

“Clearly, Azam is not fit to helm the MACC. A new chief commissioner who is clean, competent, independent and neutral not subject to political manipulation is needed to win the war against corruption in Malaysia,” he said in a statement.

Yesterday Azam said the CPI by TI does not necessarily portray the “real corruption situation” in a country.

“Even TI says it is (based on) perception. If I want to go into details, the areas or sectors covered by TI (to determine the level of corruption)… not everything is related to corruption.

“It (the survey) involves human rights issues, business ethics, and so on. What has that to do with the corruption perception index?” he had asked in a media briefing.

Azam, however, has also acknowledged that the CPI has given the government and policy-makers “momentum” to fight corruption.

But MACC preferred more evidence-based studies such as those used by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, as opposed to perception-based surveys, the anti-graft chief added.

Lim said there was something very wrong with Azam, who should know that the scourge of corruption is a fundamental flaw.

“Corruption is a social problem as it is an economic and political problem.

“How can Azam succeed in fighting corruption if he does not even understand the nature, shape and context of corruption and how it happens?

“Azam said MACC would ‘accept’ the rankings if it was done solely on corruption, without involving other indicators, and if it was ‘based on evidence’, which he did not specify.”

Lim said that this was despite the data sources of TI being collected by institutions that include the World Bank and the World Economic Forum.

“Is Azam bearing a grudge against TI, merely because in the 2021 CPI, Malaysia dropped five spots to rank 62 out of 180 countries, the lowest ranking in history?

“The CPI for this year is expected to decline further with many corruption charges being used as a political tool against opposition MPs, as well as charges against pro-government MPs withdrawn or not prosecuted even though arrests have been made.”

He added Azam’s own abuse of power with unaccountable extraordinary wealth in trading and owning millions of ringgit worth of company shares has failed to set a good example, as well as exposed the scandal of a law enforcer being a law-breaker.

“How can Malaysia’s CPI improve when MACC is seen as covering up instead of exposing corruption, especially those committed by the highest levels of the country’s leadership?

“If the CPI by TI is not seen as a reliable and credible yardstick, then what global standard would Azam propose as an alternative?”

Azam yesterday said MACC is exploring evidence-based methods in corruption surveys done by the UNODC.

“MACC hopes to collaborate with UNODC on this matter not only by focusing on civil servants, but also on the private sector and general public.

“A holistic and comprehensive corruption survey can help in formulating and developing more accurate and robust measures to fight corruption. This is the direction we want to prioritise,” Azam said. – July 22, 2022.