KUCHING, Jan 23: Bandar Kuching MP Chong Chieng Jen has called for Sarawak Barisan Nasional (BN) component parties to leave BN as Malaysia’s score on Transparency International’s (TI) Corruption Perception Index (CPI) 2017 has dropped two points to 47 points.
Describing the country’s CPI score which has dropped to all-time low as a great concern for the whole nation, Chong, who is also state Pakatan Harapan (PH) chairman said it has further confirmed that the BN government is a kleptocracy.
“It is a shame for all BN component parties — SUPP (Sarawak United Peoples’ Party), PBB (Parti Pesaka Bumiputera Bersatu), PRS (Parti Rakyat Sarawak), PDP (Progressive Democratic Party) — to be part of the corrupted regime and continue supporting (Prime Minister Datuk Seri) Najib (Tun Razak) and even to the extent of defending Najib’s position as the Prime Minister.
“If they have any integrity and want to do something good for Sarawakians, at the first opportunity they have to pull out from BN to defend the integrity of the whole country,” he told reporters after Democratic Action Party’s (DAP’s) Chinese New Year luncheon with members of the local media today.
Chong, who is also Kota Sentosa assemblyman, said Malaysia was first labeled as a kleptocracy by the US department of Justice and now the earlier mentioned index has further confirmed it.
He said it was ‘unimaginable’ for Malaysia, which scored 47 points, fell seven places in the overall ranking of 180 countries to 62nd place, and is now on par with countries like Cuba.
Chong added that it had damaged the country’s economy as foreign investors will have second thoughts about investing in Malaysia, and Sarawak as part of it.
In 2016 Malaysia ranked 55 among 176 countries, with a score of 49 out of 100.
In 2015, Malaysia was ranked 54 out of 168 countries, with a score of 50.
The index ranks countries and territories by their perceived levels of public sector corruption according to experts and business people. It uses a scale of 0 to 100, where 0 is highly corrupt and 100 is very clean.
Malaysia dropped two points because of issues surrounding several high-profile cases.
This year, the index found that more than two-thirds of countries ranked scored below 50, with an average score of 43.
New Zealand was ranked highest with 89 points followed by Denmark with 88 points and Finland, Norway and Switzerland with 85 points.
Syria, South Sudan and Somalia ranked lowest with scores of 14, 12 and nine respectively.
In the ASEAN region, Malaysia ranked third behind Singapore, which had a score of 84, and Brunei, with a score of 62. — DayakDaily
