KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 30 – Malaysia’s Transparency International Corruption Perception Index (CPI) score improved by three points in 2023 to 50 from 47 in 2022, said Transparency International-Malaysia (TI-M) president Dr Muhammad Mohan.
He said some possible reasons for Malaysia’s rebound include the decisions of the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Agency (MACC) and the Attorney General’s Chambers to charge high-profile politicians, along with the demonstration of the judiciary’s independence.
“One reason for Malaysia’s rebound in its CPI score is the judiciary’s continued independence in the country.
“It could also be due to democratic representation, participation and power transition. Malaysia rose to rank 40th globally in the Democratic Index by the Economic Intelligence Unit in 2022, scoring 7.30 out of 10.
“Despite political stability, there was an increase in voter participation due to UNDI 18, besides Malaysia witnessing a smooth transition of power post-14th and 15th General Elections, indicating the existence of and respect for democratic principles,” he said when announcing the latest results of the TI-M 2023 CPI on Tuesday.
The survey results indicate that Malaysia’s score has rebounded to 50 points in 2023 on a scale of 0 (perceived to be highly corrupted) to 100 (perceived to be very clean), compared to 47 points in 2022.
Malaysia’s ranking in the CPI list also rebounded from 61 in 2022 to 57 in 2023 among the 180 countries surveyed.
Dr Muhammad advised Malaysia not to be complacent with the latest CPI score, saying that though the score has improved, a lot more has to be done to ensure year-by-year improvement to meet Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim’s vision for Malaysia to be ranked among the top 25 countries in the CPI by 2033.
He said among the positive developments that happened after the Unity Government came to power were the Prime Minister’s directive for enhancing the Code of National Governance, current investigations on undisclosed wealth of former politicians, and setting a national CPI target in 10 years – aiming to achieve the top 25 in the global ranking.
The CPI was based on 13 surveys and expert assessments measuring the perceived level of corruption in public sectors in 180 countries and territories worldwide.
This year, Denmark, Finland and New Zealand are the top three countries in the index with 90, 87 and 85 points respectively and are deemed as ‘clean countries’, while Syria, Venezuela and Somalia are at the bottom of the index with 13, 13 and 11 points respectively.
