Another black day for Parliament and for Malaysia’s anti-corruption campaign – when my motion for an emergency debate on Transparency International (TI) Corruption Perception Index (CPI) 2009 which saw Malaysia suffering the worst CPI rank of 56 and score of 4.5, as well as the worst single-year drop in CPI rank by nine placings from last year’s 47th position and fall of CPI score of 0.6 from last year’s 5.1, was rejected in chambers by the Speaker Tan Sri Pandikar Amin as “not urgent”.
It is meaningless to talk about the TI CPI 2009 as a “wake-up” call, as it would appear that nothing is capable of waking up the Barisan Nasional government to clean up corruption in Malaysia except for a change of federal government in the next general elections.
A survey of the 15 annual reports of the TI CPI from 1995 to 2009 shows that Malaysia occupies dubious company, sharing with Philippines the dishonour of being two of the 12 Asian countries first surveyed in 1995 which had ended with both lower CPI ranking and score in CPI 2009 as compared to CPI 1995 – with Malaysia suffering a bigger drop in CPI score of .78 (5.28 in 1995; 4.5 in 2009) as compared to Philippines, which suffered a drop of .37 in the past 15 years (2.77 in 1995; 2.4 in 2009).
In the first TI CPI 1995 report, Malaysia was ranked the top fourth out of 12 Asian countries, behind Singapore (No. 3), Hong Kong (No. 17) and Japan (No. 20), but 15 years later, Malaysia has slipped to ninth placing out of 24 Asian countries ranked, behind Singapore (3), Hong Kong (12), Japan (17), Taiwan (37), Brunei (39), South Korea (39), Macau (43), Bhutan (49) – all before Malaysia (56).
The sad story told by the TI CPI series from 1995-2009 is that in the past 15 years, Malaysia has become more corrupt, losing out not only to Taiwan and South Korea in Asia but likely to be overtaken by China, Thailand and India by 2020 and eventually even by Vietnam and Indonesia unless there is political will to stamp out corruption and the rot in government in Malaysia.
In the first TI CPI 1995 report, the last two of the 41 countries surveyed were all from Asia, viz: China (No. 40) and Indonesia (No. 41) but both have made significant strides in anti-corruption efforts as illustrated as follows:
| Country | CPI 1995 (out of 41) |
CPI 2009 (out of 180) |
|---|---|---|
| China | 40 (2.16) | 79 (3.6) |
| Indonesia | 41 (1.94) | 111 (2.8) |
Even Thailand and India made significant strides in combating corruption in their CPI scores if not in ranking, as follows:
| Country | CPI 1995 (out of 41) |
CPI 2009 (out of 180) |
|---|---|---|
| Thailand | 34 (2.79) | 84 (3.4) |
| India | 35 (2.78) | 84 (3.4) |
Vietnam was first included in the TI CPI 1997, ranked 43 out of 52 nations with 2.79 score. It is ranked No. 120 with a score of 2.7 in the TI CPI 2009.
All over Asia and the world, to enhance greater international competitiveness to promote greater economic development and growth, most countries are making great strides in institutional reforms particularly in cleaning up corruption in their economics and politics.
Malaysia stands out as moving in the opposite direction despite all the high-sounding rhetoric about integrity and war against corruption by one Prime Minister after another, like the recent establishment of the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) which has become a Frankenstein.
MACC has declared war on Pakatan Rakyat to serve the political agenda of Umno/Barisan Nasional instead of discharging its statutory duties to professionally, independently and fearless declare war against corruption like Indonesia’s Komiti Pembenterasan Korupsi with 100 per cent corruption conviction against the “sharks” as compared to MACC’s record of zero conviction against the “sharks”.
Instead of TI CPI 2009 serving as a wake-up call, the Barisan Nasional government of Datuk Seri Najib Razak remains stubborn in its denial with the Minister for International Trade, Datuk Seri Mustapha Mohamad blaming the TI CPI and the methodology used instead of the increasingly rampant corruption in the country and the pervasive loss of national and international confidence in the BN government to declare an all-out war against corruption, as highlighted by MACC inaction or culpability in the various corruption scandals in the past few months, in particular the death of DAP aide Teoh Beng Hock at MACC headquarters in Shah Alam, the RM12.5billion PKFZ scandal, the Lingam Videotape scandal, etc. and continued government refusal to establish an Independent Police Complaints and Misconduct Commission (IPCMC) to create an efficient, incorruptible, professional world-class police service.
This is not only a great shame and infamy for Malaysia in international society but a great obstacle to any goal for Malaysia to become a developed high-income nation by 2020.
Just as 1+1 = 2,
so
Rasuah = umno
and
Rasuah + umno = malaysia boleh
As I had mentioned before and will mention again, the whole government machinery in particular UMNO is participating actively in the game of corruption and being part of it and benefitting tremedously form it , it is a no go for them to get rid of corruption. What they are doing are just gimmicks to some “Kampung or Village folks” to savor. Anybody with some intelligence will know that corruption is widespread all over the country especially in the Government sectors and you can even smell it the moment you walk in for some transaction. I can say it is widespread but can be controlled but the government of the day being part and parcel of the game and encouraged by UMNO will see no end to it. The spaeker is an ex UMNO member and how do you expect him to be serious about the prevention of corruption. If one were to trace the lineage of events many leaders might not be where they are if not for corruption as some of them are just lack of EQ and no IQ but can become MPs. This is why TDM has coined the “Malaysia Boleh” slogan and it definitely fits well to the situation in the country.
‘Malaysia Boleh’ means bolehla bang, 10 ringgit aje tak payah speeding ticket
‘1Malaysia’ means satu malay race, sia-sia aje yang lain-lain.
‘vision 2020’ – visi untuk 20 lagi orang UMNO jadi 20billion ringgit lebih kaya
pandikar amin could say so because he knew that there will not be policemen rush into the parliament to drag him away!
Hello, hello.Debate on corruption in the parliament?No way.You are just asking the government to hang themselves.
These rascals are all corrupted.You must as well ask the ministers to teach the world how to be corrupted.Rid away corruption?In another world.
Maybe for UMNo, corruption lies in the eyes of the beholder.
That explains why UMNo is so very ugly.
Mr Lim must be out of his mind. We are all aware that such index is just something created by the Western countries, with the intention to tarnish the images of some fast developing countries such as Malaysia and Indonesia. The index is aiming to downplay the importance of Malaysia and discourage investors from investing in this country. We should not be paying much attention to this index. Instead, we should continue to fight for corruption in our own way and maintain prosperity for the society.
The West must understand that Corruption is the life blood of UMNO.
UMNO will collapse of anemia without corruption.
In fact Corruption is to Malaysia as Football is to Brazil.
hahahahahaha…”Not urgent”…I guess Mr.Speaker will soon be as Tun.
And our Kasim Amat’s is saying is mind is better than LKS. This typical UMNO guy.. respond to the 56th position… as purposely done by Westerners.. to dis courage investors coming into Malaysia.
What a stupid idiotic excuse that is….treating investors like idiots too…do not know how to survey each country they wish to invest by their own people…social..economical…political…logistic..PLUS…how free are they…to invest here.
The signs shows..all investors must offer bribes in Malaysia..to get things done.
We least expect such a motion will be allowed. Its normal as we will never expect any sincerity to fight corruption. This disease has really out of control now. It has spread wide and deep. It has been a culture sort of thing.
For a start this how BN can cling to power for such a long long time. All their supporters are feed by corrupted money otherwise who want to fight till die for a cawangan head in any of the division.
We also seen the MCA suo shear their tears openly when come to known they have been drop from their CC. Any one think they are sincere in serving the people? They all want the position so that they get some easy money. It all the same in BN components parties.
UMNO is the ugliest beast on the face of the planet. Beasts of a feather flock together.
Now, Najib mahathir’s appretice is gonna do what ‘ol mahathir did sack his deputy, and so OTK will sack or sodomise LTL. What a joke
Please do not insult UMNO. PR is even more corrupted. Are you dare to say PR is clean?
I like the comment #7 by En Kasim Amat.The Westerners purposely downgraded Malaysia to discourage investment into Malaysia.What about China, index shows corruption is rampant but still drawing the biggest Foreign Direct Investment(FDI).Are those westerners morons?Come on, we cannot be so narrow minded.I think En Kasim do not have the facts correct.If UMNO,MCA & MIC are not corrupted then he must have been a newborn.
Like I said,Kasim Amat is one of those who idolised and would come all out to defend Umno/Bn at all costs even it’s pretty clear of its corrupted practice.Kasim disputed the Westerner’s CPI for Malaysia and it’s okay for it’s his right.But can he dispute the vast majority of the people feeling that the Umno/BN regime is a corrupted regime since 1957 ?
I’d like to apologize to kasim amat regarding my comment in #11. I did not mean to insult your allegiance to UMNO. I’m just stating what the majority of malaysians think, in fact the PKR people were once from UMNO and they think the same. Sorry mate, bad luck.
Are those westerners morons?
Possibly, but perhaps they’re numerate morons! I think people get confused by the large numbers involved in China’s recent success (because it had lots of success in the distant past, it just ‘took a break’ for a while) and the size of the country and enormous number of people involved.
I saw FDI mentioned, and went hunting for the figures. There are lots of tables listing total FDI, and China is right there near to the top of them. Check out this table of FDI per capita, which appears to me to be a more meaningful indicator of what we should individually feel as the result of FDI:
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/eco_for_dir_inv_net_bop_cur_us_percap-bop-current-us-per-capita
If you’re in a hurry, Malaysia is #91. If you’ve got the time to peruse the bottom of the list, you might notice some highly desirable emigration destinations with extreme negative FDIs. It seems to me that FDIs are not alone a sufficient indicator of national success.
1. #26 by sightseeing on Thursday, 19 November 2009 – 5:15 am
Kit’s motion: {Parliament must urgently debate the TI CPI 2009 ranking and score for Malaysia to take urgent and remedial measures to check the country going down the road of a failed state}
Expected reply by Speaker Pandikar Amin: {The issue is of public interest but is not urgent. The Prime Minister has clarified that money politics is not corruption. Therefore TI CPI 2009 is technically wrong to consider money politics as corruption.}
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Uncle Kit,
The above predicted outcome was posted before your motion in Parliament. This speaker .. all he does is to read out the standard script in response to any motion moved by the opposition.
Thema new synonym for the word ‘Rasuah’ should be included in KAMUS DEWAN
SYNONYM FOR ‘RASUAH’ =UMNO, MAKAN SUAP, KORUPSI
This nonsense should be brought up in Parliament
http://www.sun2surf.com/article.cfm?id=40424
Corruption is umnoputras’ rice bowl. It is one of their many basic needs like sex. How can it ever be taken away? That would tantamount to an infringement of their fundamental rights!
I am not at all surprised by Speaker Tan Sri Pandikar Amin’s decision to reject Kit’s motion.
People who have been in “corruption business” for so long will eventually become numb (no feeling) to what corruption means.
The word “corruption” probably does not exist in UMNO’s vocabulary by now.
Whenever there is umno, there is corruption.
Without corruption, umno cannot survive.
umno still thinking that this is mamaktair era the dark fog.
Taiking,Umnoputra’s corruption is liken to a final cancer disease which is incureable.Come 2010,under Umno/Bn,the CPI would be 56 +++,you can be sured of it.Yhsiew,you have been mistaken.The fact of the matter is “corruption” is all the time on their mind,every moment,second,minute,hour ,day,week,month and year.In other word,365/366 days,corruption stays firm and rooted on their mind. I think voters can up root it,it’s the one and only demoncratic way to do it.
Encik Kassim Amat. I do not know who you are and you do not know who I am. We respect each others opinion. I will welcome you to have a cup of tea and hope that our discussion will throw some lights on how serious is corruption in this country. I am sure you will not like this country to go to the dogs as some corrupted country is. From statistics, there is no corrupt country in the world that can be a developed country. Please let me know if you can name me one. For a starter please visit my blog http://www.towardsgoodgovernance.blogspot.com
to have an idea about how corruption is deviced and perhaps I can direct you to see how it actually takes place.
I respect you opinion in saying that PR is not clean which I interpret it as PR is also corrupted.
Lets not fight to say which party is corrupted or not corrupted. LETs fight together against corruption, whether it is BN or PR. This malaise must be removed or at least for the start effective steps must be taken to curbed it.
Yes frankyapp. And I would vote umno out any time. I would do so even if we do not have a viable alternative government in place. Fortunately, we do. Toyo and gang is doing us a mighty great favour by plucking the rotten apples away from the pakatan tree. Come next election, pakatan would be clean and lean and therefore strong – quite unlike umno a party full of deadlogs, re-cycled/re-used politicians and crooks (well errr good crooks, lembudin may say).