Shame of shame – Malaysia named among world’s six “worst corruption scandals of 2015”

It is a shame of shame – Malaysia named among the world’s six “worst corruption scandals of 2015” by the international website, foreignpolicy.com, which is published daily online by the Slate Group, a division orf Washington Post Company.

A report uploaded on Dec. 29 (Washington time), entitled “The worst corruption scandals of 2015” said that “massive corruption scandals embroiled world leaders, high court judges, and the men who run the world’s soccer industry, among many others” in 2015.

Heading the list of infamy was the FIFA (the Federation Internationale de Football Association) corruption, followed by Nigeria, with Malaysia in a dishourable third place.

The rest were taken up by Honduras and Guatemala which took fourth place, Ghanian judges and the UN General Assembly fifth and sixth places.

The infamous plaque of dishonour for Malaysia cited as follows:

“When U.S. President Barack Obama visited Malaysia in November, he had the pleasure of arriving in the middle of an awkward corruption scandal. Four months earlier, theWall Street Journal reported that some $700 million of state funds had ended up in Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak’s personal bank account — which was not where they were supposed to go. That tied Razak directly to a probe into the 1Malaysia Development Berhad, a government-owned development company that was supposed to turn Kuala Lumpur into a thriving financial hub. Najib has disparaged the Journal’s reports as inaccurate, claiming instead that the money in his account came from personal donations. But the reports came after the fund had already fallen behind on its payment schedule. Obama claims he raised the question of corruption in a private meeting with Najib, but publicly said only that the government should aim to be ‘more accountable, more open, more transparent, to root out corruption’.”

Citation for FIFA’s first placing for corruption in 2015 are as follows:

“Soccer’s world-governing body is so entangled in a massive web of corruption that it’s hard to pinpoint where it begins or ends, or even just how much money is involved. In May, after a lengthy U.S.-led investigation, the American Justice Department indicted 14 FIFA associates and officials, both current and former, who the FBI believed to be involved in “rampant, systemic, and deep-rooted” corruption. Seven months later, in December, another 16 officials were charged with involvement in bribery and corruption. On top of all that, FIFA president Sepp Blatter and Union of European Football Associations President Michel Platini were both given eight year suspensions from soccer activities this month over $2 million paid to Platini by Blatter in 2011. The U.S. investigation was initially intended to figure out whether FIFA officials took bribes to allow Russia and Qatar to host upcoming World Cups. But as evidence mounted, the inquiries expanded into a much more expansive probe, revealing what prosecutors say are years of corrupt practices, including bribery and game-selling, from officials in Europe, North America, Latin America, and the Caribbean.”

This is the citation for the second-ranking Nigeria:

“When Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari took over the presidency in May, it didn’t take him long to announce that he estimated some $150 billion had gone missing in Nigeria over the past ten years. The former military leader vowed he would do his best to find out where that money ended up, and in November he claimed to have traced at least a small fraction of it back to his predecessor’s administration. On Nov. 17, he ordered the arrest of Sambo Dasuki, former President Goodluck Jonathan’s national security advisor, for dipping his hands into the defense budget and allegedly stealing some $2 billion from the country’s fund to fight Boko Haram, the extremist group terrorizing Nigeria’s northeast. According to Buhari, Dasuki awarded phantom contracts for military supplies, including helicopters, fighter jets, bombs, and ammunition. But the equipment never arrived, and the new Nigerian administration is convinced Dasuki pocketed the money.”

Can Malaysians expect the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak, who has brought such unprecedented dishonour at the global level to Malaysia, fully defend himself in his 2016 New Year Message tonight?