PETALING JAYA, May 14 ― Political parties and the police are perceived as the most corrupt institutions in the country, a survey by Transparency-International Malaysia (TI-M) revealed today.

In a chilling reflection of the country’s police force, the Malaysian Corruption Barometer 2014 survey also showed that 35 per cent of respondents who encountered the police in the past 12 months had paid a bribe.

“We should make integrity and trust the founding principles of public institutions and services,” TI-M president Datuk Akhbar Satar said at the launch of the survey results here.

The Malaysian Corruption Barometer (MCB) showed that 45 per cent and 42 per cent of respondents viewed political parties and the police respectively as “corrupt” and “extremely corrupt”.

Respondents were asked “To what extent do you see the following institutions/organisations in Malaysia to be affected by corruption” and told to answer on a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 meaning “not at all corrupt” and 5 representing “extremely corrupt”.

The perceptions in the MCB were an improvement from TI’s Global Corruption Barometer (GCB) 2013, which showed a whopping three quarters or 76 per cent, and 69 per cent of Malaysian respondents viewing the police and political parties respectively as corrupt.

TI-M secretary-general Dr Loi Kheng Min said the MCB was done through face-to-face interviews, while the GCB utilised phone interviews.

When asked if the improved perceptions of graft in the MCB could be partly attributed to methodology, as respondents might give more socially acceptable answers in face-to-face interviews, Loi acknowledged the possibility.

“It could be,” he told reporters.

The MCB also showed that 45 per cent of respondents have been asked to pay a bribe in the past.

The survey revealed that the main reason respondents gave for giving bribes, across all institutions, was to “speed things up”.

There was a slight drop in perceptions that Malaysia’s efforts in fighting corruption are effective, from 31 per cent in the GCB last year, to 28 per cent in the MCB this year.

The number of respondents willing to report corruption also fell from 79 per last year to 51 per cent this year, with 46 per cent of those unwilling to report corruption saying that they are afraid of reprisals.

On whether the level of corruption in Malaysia has increased over the past two years, 30 per cent agreed this year that it had, down from 39 per cent last year.

In the MCB, half of Malaysians believe that corruption is a serious problem in the public sector, down from 58 per cent in the GCB.

There was also an improvement in Malaysians’ perception that the government is not run by a few big interests looking out for themselves, from 20 per cent last year to 39 per cent this year.

As political parties are deemed the most corrupt, Akhbar recommended that political contributions be channelled to party accounts, instead of personal bank accounts.

“Respect the rule of law and practise what you preach,” he said.

The MCB’s sample comprised 2,032 respondents throughout Malaysia that were selected through random sampling, who were interviewed face-to-face by Frost & Sullivan.

The GCB had used 1,000 participants.