DAP has urged MACC chief commissioner Azam Baki to resign following his dismissal of Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index (TI-CPI) as a legitimate yardstick for corruption.
Yesterday, Azam told the press that the TI-CPI only measured perception and does not reflect reality.
He added that Malaysia, being ranked 62 on the TI-CPI, was better than Vietnam (rank 87), Indonesia (96) and Thailand (110).
In 2008, when the TI-CPI study was expanded to 180 countries (also the size of the current study), Malaysia ranked 47.
In a statement today, DAP chairperson Lim Guan Eng said Azam’s dismissal of TI-CPI was shocking because global institutions such as the United Nations, World Bank and the International Monetary Fund accepted the study.
“There is something very wrong with Azam, who should know that the scourge of corruption is not a fundamental flaw occurring in isolation but a complex problem interwoven within a mosaic of social, economic and political structures. Corruption is a social problem as it is an economic and political problem.
“How can Azam succeed in fighting corruption if he does not even understand the nature, shape and context of corruption and how it happens. Azam would do well to read the various books on corruption by the late academic Syed Hussein Alatas,” Lim questioned.
“Azam said MACC would ‘accept’ the rankings if it was done solely on corruption, without involving other indicators, and if it was ‘based on evidence’ which he did not specify. This is despite the data sources of TI being collected by institutions that include the World Bank and the World Economic Forum.
“Is Azam bearing a grudge to undermine TI merely because for the 2021 CPI, Malaysia dropped five spots to rank 62 out of 180 countries, the lowest ranking in history?” asked Lim.
Moreover, Lim said Azam, too, was being accused of wrongdoing involving his large equity stake in a public listed company.
“How can Malaysia’s CPI improve when MACC is seen as covering up instead of exposing corruption, especially committed by the highest levels of the country’s leadership?
“If the CPI by TI is not seen as a reliable and credible yardstick, then what global standard would Azam propose as an alternative?
“Clearly, Azam is not fit to helm the MACC when a new chief commissioner that is clean, competent, independent and neutral and not subject to political manipulation is needed to win the war against corruption in Malaysia,” he said.
Currently, Lim is on trial for receiving RM3.3 million in kickbacks when he was the Penang chief minister. He is also on trial for misappropriating state land to two companies. - Mkini
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