MALAYSIA needs to do more to improve its international standards on corruption after its Corruption Perception Index (CPI) dropped by one point to 47 in 2022, Transparency International Malaysia (TI-M) president Muhammad Mohan said.

He said one of the reasons the ratings could have dropped was the carrying out of several stimulus packages during the Covid-19 pandemic.

“These stimulus packages were rolled out without any parliamentary debates.

“Politicians heading government-linked companies were also among the reasons for the drop in the CPI index,” he told a press conference.

Last year, Malaysia’s CPI score deteriorated to 47 points, where 0 is perceived to be highly corrupted and 100 is perceived to be very clean.

From a score of 53 in 2019, Malaysia’s score has fallen six points over the past three years.

TI-M in the report said this drop is statistically significant, indicating that the country is heading in the wrong direction with regard to fighting corruption, supporting human rights and democracy in the public sector.

The CPI is the leading global indicator of public sector corruption, providing an annual snapshot of the relative degree of corruption in 180 countries and territories.

In order to improve the CPI, Muhammad said Putrajaya must immediately crack down on corruption.

He said that Malaysia must receive a score of more than 50 as anything below that mark is perceived as a failure.

“We are even below countries such as Namibia.”

However, he said that the ratings do not affect prime minister Anwar Ibrahim’s performance who was elected last year.

“The CPI score did not reflect Anwar performance, since he was appointed to the top post in November while the index was tabulated in September.

“The score will only reflect a move in combating corruption when the 2023 CPI comes out in January 2024.”

Muhammad added that Anwar’s government needs at least two years to show results. – January 31, 2023.