KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 27 —  Malaysia’s four-place decline in Transparency International’s 2015 Corruption Perception Index revealed the public’s lack of faith in Putrajaya’s war on graft, said a coalition of citizens groups today.

Expressing concern on the country’s drop in the anti-corruption group’s ranking, the Coalition on Governance, Integrity, Accountability and Transparency (Giat) noted that the deterioration came despite the government’s publicised efforts to eradicate graft in the country.

Giat pointed out that the specific areas that caused Malaysia’s placing to drop were related to the prosecution or lack thereof against abusers of public office, the existence of nepotism in a political-business nexus, and the existence of power misuse for personal gain.

“The results of the survey which was revealed by Transparency International Malaysia this morning, reflects Malaysians’ deteriorating deficit of trust in government, and negative perceptions of increased corruption and lack of accountability by elected and public officials,” the group said in a statement today.

Giat added that the results were also indicative of Malaysians’ lack of faith in authorities’ attempts to investigate and prosecute such cases, which it noted invariably “lead to nothing” despite the publicity that surrounds incidents of grand corruption.

Among others, Giat suggested a pressing need to introduce laws governing political funding as well as for anti-graft agencies such as the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) to be reinforced with greater powers.

“Despite the Malaysian government’s aspirations to develop the country into a developed and progressive nation, the fact that it has dropped four places in the overall ranking of the 168 countries which participated indicates that it continues to not do enough to address the issue of corruption and abuses of power.

“The lack of political will to do so has a direct impact on the country’s development. The demand by Malaysians for reforms is growing louder and will continue to grow in volume,” Giat added.

Malaysia went from 50th to 54th in TI’s Index released today, putting the country behind Jordan (45), Nambia (45) and Rwanda (44).

Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Datuk Paul Low, who is in charge of Putrajaya’s integrity efforts, said the government acknowledged the decline, but noted that steps to address the shortcomings highlighted were already incorporated into existing ant-corruption campaigns.

The TI Index  2015 was announced a day after the Attorney-General ordered the case closed on the RM2.6 billion donation deposited into Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s personal accounts prior to Election 2013.

The Giat coalition comprises the Institute for Democracy and Economic Affairs (IDEAS), Transparency International Malaysia (TI-M), Sinar Project, Centre to Combat Corruption and Cronyism (C4) and Friends of Kota Damansara.