IS MALAYSIA REALLY THE WORLD’S THIRD MOST CORRUPT?

A scandal does not necessarily mean it has been proven beyond reasonable doubt.

Rasyhid Hamzan

As it has been throughout 2015, Prime Minister Najib’s strongest critics are citing a report by foreignpolicy.com and are alleging that Malaysia is the third most corrupted nation in the world. Once again, things are being spun around to confuse the people, and the ever gullible Malaysians are being fooled into believing it, again.

Political analyst Shahbudin Hussein claims that Malaysia is the most corrupt among Muslim countries and third in the world. The report which was published on foreignpolicy.com  is merely enumerating the world’s worst corrupted “scandals” of 2015. Scandal is defined as a rumour or malicious gossip about an event or action. Foreignpolicy.com places the United Nations General Assembly in the biggest corruption scandal list as well. It is because of stories linking the former president of U.N General Assembly to alleged bribery scandal with a Chinese businessman. Does this mean the entire United Nations are corrupted and the entire Assembly is one of the most corrupted in the world? The obvious answer is no! Likewise, 1MDB’s allegations cannot to be used to infer that Malaysia is one of the most corrupted country globally.

A scandal does not necessarily mean it has been proven beyond reasonable doubt. While DAP’s Lim Kit Siang shames Najib for the worst scandal, maybe he should explain how did the 1MDB story become such a big global scandal. Lim and his allies played a big role in up scaling malicious claims against 1MDB and the BN government that has led this the current assumptions.

The website cited the RM 2.6 billion donation into Najib’s personal banking account, and stories linking that with 1MDB as the reason Malaysia is in that list. For the record, 1MDB is not Malaysia and vice versa. If such inferences are made, then Azmin’s DEIG scandal and Lim Guan Eng’s numerous project scandals would make Selangor and Penang the most corrupted states in Malaysia. No wonder Singapore mocks the credibility of the opposition in Malaysia, as they are full of deceits.

The opposition and Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad has a reputation for one-sided conspiracies. Remember how they kept saying that Malaysia is going to be bankrupt soon and foreign investments into the country are depleting over the years? Trading Economics who are internationally renowned for research in global economics, whose headquarters is  in New York, through their website tradingeconomics.com most recently reported that Malaysia had a RM12.16 billion trade surplus in October 2015 compared to RM 1.19 billion a year earlier beating all market consensus. S&P Syndicate Public Company Limited, Moody’s and Fitch have all given positive rankings to Malaysia with regards to trading for 2015, that led the Trading Economics to give Malaysia an upper medium grade ranking, beating countries like India, Indonesia, Italy, and Spain. Why hasn’t this been highlighted in the media by the opposition? Isn’t this strong enough evidence to show how much the opposition have been fooling Malaysians?

People like Shahbudin and Lim Kit Siang are shallow-minded title readers. They read the heading of an article and make senseless assumptions. 2015 has shown us how big conspirators these people are with little substance. Keep on going this away and you will only damage yourself. Mahathir has learnt it through self-destruction. As it is, the opposition is already well-known as people who talk-the-talk and not walk-the-talk. Making statements that the country is top 5 most corrupted is sickening. Wait for the 2015 Corruption Perception Index by Transparency International. If Malaysia is not in the bottom 50, will Lim Kit Siang resign from his post? Will that ranking make Shahbudin lick his own faeces? Malaysia was in the 50 least corrupt nation list out of 175 countries worldwide in 2014.

Just as how the Barisan Nasional government had the last laugh on the last day of 2015, they will again at the end of GE14.