Corruption in Malaysia : "you say potato, I say pototo; you say tomato, I say tomoto"

steadyaku47 comment: Two news item - two different interpretation - The first one from the prestigious (not!), leading (not!) and government owned (YES!) NewStraitsTimes and the other from a source NOT the NewStraitsTimes.... ..Malaysia boleh!

Our deepest condolences to the families of passengers and crew of flight MH370

15 May 2014| last updated at 01:43AM

‘Malaysia now less corrupt’

By ELVINA FERNANDEZ | elvina@nst.com.my 

PETALING JAYA: THE public’s perception of the extent of corruption in the country has dropped in the last two years, accompanied with a decline in the belief that corruption in the public sector was a problem, that was part of the outcome of the Malaysian Corruption Barometer (MCB) 2014, released by Transparency International Malaysia (TI-M) yesterday.

The report, which surveyed 2,032 respondents, claimed that perception of corruption had improved significantly from the previous year, with only 30 per cent of Malaysians feeling that the level of corruption had increased in the last two years — an improvement from the 39 per cent recorded last year.

There was also improvement in the perception of corruption in the public sector, with 50 per cent of respondents saying it was a serious issue, compared to 58 per cent last year.

TI-M president Datuk Akhbar Satar said the survey also showed that the political sector was perceived to be as the most corrupt.

He said 45 per cent of respondents perceived political parties as corrupt while 42 per cent of respondents perceived the police force to be corrupt.

In last year’s results, 76 per cent of Malaysians perceived the police to be the most corrupt while political parties comprised 69 per cent.

Akhbar said to change this perception, political parties should re-examine the way they campaigned and how to reduce their spending.

“We must identify the root cause of corruption in Malaysia to make integrity and trust the founding principles of public institutions and service.”

Akhbar said everyone had a role to play in stopping corruption.

The Performance Management Delivery Unit (Pemandu) said it would enhance the present initiatives used to bust corrupt practices in response to the outcome of the MCB and added that it viewed the results as a way to help the government in fighting corruption.

“The MCB results are important for our Anti-Corruption National Key Results Areas (NKRA) as it is one of the Key Performance Indexes and an indication of the government’s seriousness in its fight against corruption,” it said in a statement.

Pemandu stressed that one of the NKRAs under the Government Transformation Programme (GTP) was fighting corruption and that initiatives were taken to address the matter.

=================================================================================

Malaysia’s political parties perceived to be the most corrupt.

Posted on May 15, 2014 by omong

Political parties have overtaken the police as institutions perceived to be the most corrupt in Malaysia – a most “unusual” development – according to a survey done by the Malaysian chapter of Transparency International.

TI-M president Datuk Akhbar Satar admitted today that the result was unique to Malaysia as political parties in other countries were not perceived to be as corrupt as here.

“Yes, we don’t see this happening in other countries. We are seeing this for the first time,” he said after releasing the results of the first-ever Malaysian Corruption Barometer (MCB) 2014 in Petaling Jaya.

Of the 2,000 respondents surveyed, 45% of Malaysians perceive political parties to be the most corrupt, followed by the police (42%), public officials and civil servants (31%) and parliament and legislature (23%).

In last year’s Global Corruption Barometer, 78% of Malaysians perceived the police to be the most corrupt in Malaysia .

The MCB survey also showed that the perception of the government’s anti-corruption efforts has deteriorated, with 38% of Malaysians saying they are ineffective.

In view of this, Akhbar called on Putrajaya to “walk the talk”, saying that the government needed to convince the public that their efforts to reduce corruption are paying off.

“Perhaps they must look back at the strategies. It is not wrong to obtain ideas from NGOs and the public on how to tackle corruption,” he later said at a press conference.

“More work is needed by the government in order to achieve their KPI of 70% by next year.”

The MCB findings also showed that 45% of the respondents had been asked to pay bribes in the past.

The highest incidence of bribery in the past 12 months is recorded for the police followed by registry and permit, with the most common excuse given being to “speed things up”.

The willingness of the public to report incidents of corruption declined from last year’s GCB results (79%) to 51% this year.

Most respondents who said they would not report these incidents admitted they are afraid that there would be negative consequences.

“People are afraid that action might be taken against them for reporting the incident. They are not sure if the Whistleblower Act can actually work,” Akbar said.

The MCB, however, also revealed that the perception of corruption improved significantly from the 2013 GCB results, with 30% of Malaysians feeling that the level of corruption had increased in the past 2 years.

Last year, 39% of the respondents felt that corruption had increased.

An improvement was also recorded for the perception of corruption in the public sector, with half of the respondents saying it is a serious problem compared with the 58% last year.

Akbar also listed TI-M’s recommendations to curb corruption, which included identifying and addressing the root cause of the problem in Malaysia and holding the corrupt to account without fear or favour.

“It is sad when political parties – being the driving force of democracy – are perceived to be the most corrupt institution,” he added.

“The MCB’s findings correlate to the administration errors, substantial waste of public finds and severe mismanagement revealed in the Auditor-General’s Report.”

Akbar said he would reveal the findings of the survey and make recommendations to Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak to raise the seriousness of the issue.

source: MSN News