KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 3 — Malaysia fared marginally better in this year’s Transparency International's Corruption Perception Index, keeping to its trend of small incremental improvements to its score over the past three years.
Malaysia ranked 50th out of 175 countries studied by the global anti-graft organisation with an index score of 52, two points better than its 2013 score of 50. The country recorded a score of 49 in the 2012 edition.
Despite the minimal advancement in score, Malaysia managed to take second place among its peers in Asean by virtue of much worse scores assigned by the index to the Philippines and Thailand — ranked joint-85th with a score of 38 — followed by Indonesia which ranked 107th with a score of 34.
Other Asean countries closer to the bottom of the pile were Vietnam (119th) with a score of 31, Laos (145th) with a score of 25, and Cambodia and Myanmar, which were joint-156th with identical scores of 21.
The only Asean country to make the global top-10 was Singapore, which took 7th place with a score of 86. Singapore's score, however, was lower than its 2013 score of 86 and a further decline from the 87 it scored in 2012.
TI said in its report that not enough is being done to fight corruption in the Asia-Pacific region despite "many public declarations and commitments" made to deal with graft in the world's fastest growing region.
The organisation stressed that the majority of the 28 Asia-Pacific countries included in the index have been ineffective in dealing with corruption in the public sector, with 18 scoring less than 40 on the index.
"The Corruption Perceptions Index measures corruption in the public sector, which is accountable to the government.
"The persistent low scores ask a critical question to the leadership of Asian countries, which have full control of the conduct of its public services. This is about the leadership," the report read.
