Thursday 28 Mar 2024
By
main news image

PUTRAJAYA: Malaysia’s goal to score higher on Transparency International’s corruption perception index (CPI) may be hampered due to news on 1Malaysia Development Bhd, said the global anti-graft watchdog’s co-founder Michael J Hershman.

“Typically when there’s a high- profile scandal, the perception of that country changes. So in my judgment, because of this corruption scandal, there will be a drop [in the CPI].

“It has not been released yet but based on history, I see that a country’s perception drops when there’s a lot of media reporting on that scandal,” he said, referring to the CPI for 2015.

Hershman was speaking at the 16th International Anti-Corruption Conference, which Malaysia is hosting.

Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Datuk Paul Low said on Wednesday that the country had set itself the target of achieving a CPI score of 70 from the current 52.

Malaysia also hopes to improve its current ranking among the countries surveyed from its current placing of 50 to the top 30 by 2020.

Low, the minister in charge of governance and integrity, also said that Malaysia is committed to protecting the “sanctity and independence” of its public institutions, especially the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) and the office of the auditor-general.

MACC will be strengthened to allow it to improve the capacity and professionalism of its staff and to have control over their employment terms and conditions, Low said. — The Malaysian Insider

 

This article first appeared in digitaledge Daily, on September 4, 2015.

      Print
      Text Size
      Share