CYBERJAYA, April 4 — Protecting the ringgit’s value without resorting to pegging the currency requires a corruption-free government and stable country, Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad said today.

Without strong fundamentals in the administration, the former prime minister said that the currency was vulnerable to speculators and rogue traders keen to profit from its decline.

“Of course, we can fix the currency rate, but if you want to float it, please ensure that this country is peaceful, stable, the laws are followed, no corruption, and politics of this country are stable,” he was quoted as saying by national news agency Bernama today.

The former prime minister earlier today savaged the federal administration over the allegations of corruption surrounding it, chiefly linked to the state-owned 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB), saying he has lost faith in the people running the country.

Dr Mahathir, who made the controversial decision to fix the ringgit at a rate of RM3.80 to the US dollar during the Asian Financial Crisis, pointed out that the choice had allowed the Malaysian economy to recuperate ahead of its neighbours then.

“We recovered much faster than other countries, and now, even those who condemned us are saying we did the right thing,” he said.

This week, Deputy Finance Minister Datuk Chua Tee Yong said Putrajaya has no plans to peg the ringgit’s value despite a steep decline in recent months.

Saying that existing circumstances were different from the 1997 crisis, Chua said the federal government would not implement the measure employed to stabilise the ringgit’s value then.

“Extreme steps like pegging the ringgit are only for extreme situations. Certainly we are not in an extreme situation like that,” he said in Parliament on Monday.

The ringgit has fallen 13.9 per cent in value from last September until the end of March, and closed at RM3.66 to the US dollar on Friday.