Malaysia slides in global Corruption perception index

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia's ranking dropped four places in the Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) last year.

The index, released by Transparency International, showed that Malaysia was ranked 54th out of 168 countries this year compared to 50th out of 175 countries last year.

Malaysia ranked 52 the previous year.

The CPI scores and ranks are determined by the perceived level of corruption in the country's public sector.

Transparency International-Malaysia president Datuk Akhbar Satar said Malaysia's position would be even worse if seven other countries were included in last year's evaluation as their scores were above Malaysia in 2014.

"Despite many steps implemented, the level of corruption experienced in Malaysia does not seem to be decreasing," he said.

Globally, Denmark received the highest rank with a score of 91 followed by Finland (90) and Sweden (89).

Malaysia slides four points down global corruption perception index

Issues surrounding 1Malaysia Development Berhad and the RM2.6bil donation were among reasons why Malaysia slipped four points down the global corruption perception index (CPI).

The survey of the CPI of 168 nations for 2015 revealed the country's score dropped from 52% to 50% compared to 2014 while its ranking slid from 50 to 54.

Transparency International Malaysia president Datuk Akhbar Satar said the recent controversy surrounding 1MDB and the RM2.6bil donations contributed to the drop.

"There were 175 countries that were surveyed last year.

"However, seven countries were not included in the survey which would have pushed our ranking down further," he said during the announcement of the global CPI

Among the nations that scored the top marks were Denmark (91%), Finland (90%), Sweden (89%), New Zealand (88%), Netherlands and Norway (87%).

Among the nations to score the lowest were Angola, South Sudan, Sudan, Afghanistan, North Korea and Somalia.

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China's Bo Xilai on trial

JINAN, Aug. 23 -- Jinan Intermediate People's Court in east China's Shandong Province continued to hear the case of bribery, embezzlement and abuse of power involving Bo Xilai for a second day on Friday.
 

The 64-year-old Bo is former secretary of the Chongqing Municipal Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) and former member of the CPC Central Committee Political Bureau.

Prosecutors accuse Bo accepted bribes worth about 21.8 million yuan (about 3.5 million U.S. dollars) from businessmen Tang Xiaolin and Xu Ming and embezzled five million yuan in public funds from the Dalian municipal government. He was also accused of abusing power when dealing with his wife Bogu Kailai's murder case and the defection of his associate, Wang Lijun, in 2012.

On the second day of the trial, prosecutors presented evidence that Bo accepted a large sum of money and property from Xu Ming through his wife, Bogu Kailai, and his son, Bo Guagua.

In the morning session prosecutors presented documentary evidence and played a video recording of Bogu Kailai's testimony on Aug. 10 this year.

Prosecutors also read testimony by Bogu Kailai and Frenchman Patrick Devillers.

Video and audio evidence shown in court indicated that Xu Ming provided funds for Bogu Kailai to buy a villa in France worth over 2.32 million Euros (16.25 million yuan), and that Bo Xilai was aware of this.

In the afternoon session, evidence included testimony of witnesses including Zhang Xiaojun, photographs of material evidence, confessions and the handwritten confessions of the defendant, proving that through his wife and son, Bo received almost 4.43 million yuan from Xu Ming, to pay for international and domestic air tickets, accommodations and travelling expenses, to pay off credit card debt, and buy a Segway scooter.

Prosecutors, the defendant and his lawyers examined the evidence.

Facing key facts of the charges, Bo defended that the evidence was irrelevant, saying he had only a vague impression of amounts and no one had told him exactly how much money was spent. His lawyers expressed views on the truth of witnesses' testimonies and the legality of the documentary evidence.

Prosecutor responded directly, pointing out that the defendant had expressed numerous conflicting views on key facts during his defense.

Prosecutors said that the evidence presented in court was taken legally from clear sources and should be examined comprehensively in the context of the entire case.

Wang Zhenggang, then director of the Dalian municipal bureau of urban and rural planning and land, appeared in the afternoon to testify on embezzlement charge against Bo.

Wang was handled in a separate case.

The court will continue to hear the case on Saturday to maintain the continuity of the trial, as agreed by prosecutors, the defendant and his lawyers. 

- Contributed by DuMingming、Liang Jun

Bo's trial updated live on microblog

A woman views the Chinese social media website Weibo at a cafe in Beijing on April 2, 2012 (AFP/File, Mark Ralston)



The highly anticipated trial of former politburo member Bo Xilai began Thursday, surprisingly with an almost unprecedented flood of real-time information about the proceedings.

The Jinan Intermediate People’s Court used Weibo, a popular Twitter-like microblog service, to deliver a running account of the trial since its start. The number of followers of its microblog page has jumped from less than 10,000 on Wednesday to over 300,000 by 7 pm Thursday. The court also arranged a media lobby at a nearby hotel, to provide live feed of trial details to reporters.

This is the first time details of a trial of a senior Chinese official have been released real-time to the public. In the past, such high level court trials took place behind closed doors, with details being released only after sentencing.

Bo calls wife mad after she testifies against him 

JINAN, China (Reuters) - Fallen Chinese politician Bo Xilai called his wife insane after she testified at his landmark trial on Friday that he knew of money and a villa in the French Riviera that prosecutors say were given to the couple by a businessman friend.

The video and written testimony by Gu Kailai directly contradicted Bo's robust defence on Thursday, and appear to set him up to be found guilty in China's most dramatic trial since the Gang of Four were dethroned in 1976 at the end of the Cultural Revolution.

"He should know about it all," Gu said in a video recording shown in court and posted on the court's microblog, when asked whether Bo knew that she and their son, Bo Guagua, had received money from plastics-to-property entrepreneur Xu Ming.

Bo dismissed Gu's testimony as the ravings of a madwoman.

"Bogu Kailai has changed, she's insane, often tells lies," Bo said, according to transcripts on the court microblog, using Gu's official but rarely used name. "Under the circumstances of her mental illness, the investigators placed huge pressure on her to expose me.

"Her testimony as far as I am concerned, was (given) under psychological pressure, and driven by (hope of) a reduced sentence," he added.

Gu has been jailed for the murder of British businessman Neil Heywood in November 2011, the crime which eventually led to Bo's downfall.

The businessman Xu, who is also in custody, was once close to the Bo family, but also testified against him on Thursday, according to the transcripts. Foreign reporters were not allowed into the court.

Bo, the 64-year-old former Communist Party chief of Chongqing metropolis, has been charged with illegally taking almost 27 million yuan (2.82 million pounds), corruption and abuse of power. Of that amount, about 21.8 million yuan came from Xu and another businessman Tang Xiaolin, the court said, citing the indictment.

Bo was a rising star in China's leadership circles when his career was stopped short last year by the scandal involving Gu.

Supporters of Bo's Maoist-themed social programmes say he lost out in a power struggle with capitalist-leaning reformists in Beijing, exposing divisions within the ruling party as well as Chinese society.

Last week, two sources told Reuters that Gu would only testify against her husband if a deal had been reached with authorities to protect their son.

A deal in which Bo can be swiftly convicted and sent to jail, sparing him a death penalty and with no repercussions for his son, would be in the interest of China's leadership, which wants the trial to be concluded without causing open friction between Bo's followers and critics.

On Thursday, observers said the court proceedings were probably scripted and that Bo could receive a pre-arranged sentence in exchange for limited outbursts that would show that the trial was fair, appeasing his followers.

The trial will continue for a third day on Saturday, the court said, despite expectations it could last just a single day.

VILLA IN NICE

In written testimony, Gu said she had shown Bo the graphics and slideshows for the design of a villa in Nice, France that was paid for by Xu. Bo asked her about the slideshows and according to Gu, she told Bo about Xu's involvement.

"Therefore he knew that I asked Xu Ming to pay for this villa in France," Gu said in her written statement.

In the poorly shot video, Gu appeared soft-spoken and composed as she was questioned by a worker from the state prosecutor's office. She laughed when asked whether she had been coerced into giving evidence.

Gu did not link Bo with Heywood's murder, but said he was aware she considered the Briton a threat to their son. According to testimony at Gu's trial, she killed Heywood because he had threatened Guagua after a business dispute with Gu.

Gu said Bo was also aware of her fears about the safety of Guagua, who is now in the United States
preparing for a law degree at Columbia University. Gu said she was afraid Guagua "would be kidnapped and killed in America".

"In 2011, Guagua's personal safety was threatened and Bo Xilai understood this," she said in her written testimony.

"We drew up a blacklist of suspicious people. One of them was Neil Heywood. I explained all of this to Bo Xilai."

Bo could face the death sentence, though a suspended death sentence is more likely, which effectively means life imprisonment, or a 20-year term.

Contributed by John Ruwitch - The Star (Additional reporting by Judy Hua in JINAN and Sui-Lee Wee, Ben Blanchard and Hui Li in BEIJING, Writing by Sui-Lee Wee; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)

Bo's trial updated live on microblog

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A war against corruption!

Much like transformation itself, rooting out corruption is a marathon rather than sprint

WHEN we talk about corruption, we are not talking about a fight against corruption or a battle against corruption. We are talking about a war against corruption fought on a broad front with many battles, some lost and some won, over a period of years before eventual victory.

No country has done it overnight and for many it is an ongoing war that must be waged relentlessly. Hong Kong took 10 years. It is endemic in countries around the world and it is in the most advanced and structured of societies that the war against corruption has been most telling.

But here in Malaysia, many of us expect that it can be crushed and eradicated in a short period of time and all it takes is political will. Yes, political will is necessary but it is not the only condition. Many things need to be put in place and real results will take time.

This is one aspect of transformation where we have to constantly battle against unrealistic expectations – people want results yesterday but we can’t give it to them immediately. Not today, not tomorrow, not even in the next month, because the war against corruption is one of the most difficult and, beyond time, it takes a considerable amount of effort, by many, many parties.

This is further complicated by a problem of measurement. The prevalence of corruption is not easily measurable. When we take action against corruption, the number of people brought to book will be higher but this does not necessarily mean that corruption has decreased.

For better or worse, we have to rely on perceptions of how corrupt we are, both from our own public and how foreigners see us. Sometimes, there are situations which skew the final results against us as we shall see shortly.

There is absolutely no doubt that we need to step up the war against corruption especially since the two most common indicators, Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) and the Global Corruption Barometer survey, show no significant change over the last two years – 2010 and 2011. But still we have made some progress when we take a closer look at the figures.

In 2010, Malaysia’s CPI score was 4.4 as the average score of nine surveys. Then, in 2011, Malaysia’s CPI score was 4.3 as the average score of 12 surveys. This means that three additional surveys were added. Our ranking slid to 4.3 from 4.4. (No country obtained 10 points – the highest. New Zealand topped with 9.5 while Singapore was fifth at 9.2.)

The movement in the CPI score (minus 0.1) was due to these additional three surveys, which had very low scores, thus bringing the average down. If these three surveys were not added, Malaysia’s CPI score would have moved up tremendously. One of the new surveys included was the Transparency International Bribe Payer’s Index.

This survey showed that Malaysians have a high tendency to pay bribes when they work or operate in other countries. I am certain that without that particular survey, our CPI would have increased. Because it is perceived that Malaysians working overseas bribe, it affects the CPI of the country itself.

Additionally, our ranking was 60 out of 183 countries in 2011 against 56 out of 178 countries in 2010. In Asean, we were placed at the third spot after Singapore and Brunei.

In terms of the barometer survey in 2011 conducted by Transparency International in 2011, 49% of the Malaysian public felt that the Malaysian Government’s fight against corruption is effective or extremely effective, a marginal improvement from 48% in 2010. This, however, is a vast improvement from 2009 when only 29% Malaysians thought that the Government’s effort on corruption was effective.

Overall, the two surveys show that we have made some progress in terms of the perception of corruption in the country and the number of people who have confidence that something is being done.

People like to say we must go for the big fish first. But it is not as simple as that. The process of gathering evidence is not easy and the very presence of corruption can make this process more difficult and even impossible in practice.

But what we need to do first is to put building blocks in place, a more bottom up approach which seeks to put in place a framework for good practices and a mechanism to report and root-out any corruption that takes place. It may look like we are starting small, but we are not. We need to put the right foundations in place.

Here are some examples of building blocks we have put in place:

● Whistle blower provisions: Implementation guidelines were issued in March last year. Agencies are already processing complaints of improper conduct under the Whistleblower Protection Act 2010. To-date, there are 28 cases;

● Integrity pact: The Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) project was to be the first large-scale project to implement the full Integrity Pact including monitoring and oversight elements. An oversight body was established involving the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC). An independent external monitoring system headed by the Auditor-General, with external party involvement, was formed to ensure adherence to the terms of the Integrity Pact. Full implementation of the Integrity Pact is only carried out on big projects with a high monetary value, so as to justify the cost of implementation;

● Faster prosecution: To hasten prosecution, 14 special corruption courts were set up since February last year and more than 250 cases have been processed;

● Naming and shaming website: The MACC has set up a website to list those who have been successfully prosecuted for corruption offences. This offers a ready database for interested parties and acts as a further deterrence to corruption. There are 710 listings to date (2010: 284; 2011: 96; and 2012: 13);

● Open, competitive tenders: Wherever possible we have open competitive tenders with set procedures for government procurement. For increased transparency, there is the MyProcurement Portal which lists 5,157 government contracts online in 2011; and

● Reduction of red tape in business licence applications: We are reducing the number of licences required from 780 to 375 and saving RM730mil in compliance costs. Such reduction of red tape reduces opportunities for corruption.

These are just a sampling of the measures being implemented. Over time we aim to build a wall against corruption by putting in place measures to stop its occurrence in the first place. This is as important as prosecution. Indications are some of the measures taken have directly helped government revenue. For instance, following MACC’s investigations into the Malaysian Customs Department, customs tax collection rose to a high of RM30.4bil last year. The highest previously recorded was RM28.6bil in 2008. This year, Customs expects to collect RM32bil.

In addition, the changes and reforms that we have put in place are also slowly showing results with foreign investors. According to a survey by the American Chamber of Commerce (AmCham) in Singapore, perception of corruption in the region, a long-standing issue, has greatly improved, with only 35% of respondents reporting dissatisfaction in 2011 compared with a high of 63% in 2010.

Consulting firm A.T. Kearney has also recognised Malaysia as among the top 10 countries in the Foreign Direct Investment Confidence Index for 2012.

We are taking serious efforts to fight corruption and we know the payback will be large. We are starting with the building blocks and then we will do more. Much like transformation, it is a marathon rather than a sprint. We need time.

You can do your own part by simply refusing to be part of any corrupt practices and, of course, reporting it when you come across it. That will help tremendously.

● Datuk Seri Idris Jala is CEO of Pemandu, the Performance Management and Delivery Unit. He also Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department. Reasonable comments related to this column are welcome.

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Ethics – an asset to justice

Image via Wikipedia

Getting judges to publicly declare their assets is a significant step towards improving the integrity of our judiciary and changing the perception of the bench.

DARE to declare! That seems to be the slogan of the moment, in the wake of the move by Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng and his state executive council to declare their assets publicly last week.

Based on the list of properties, investments and cars along with the loans taken, Penang is being run by a motley crew of wealthy and not-so-rich politicians.

Lim owns two shop lots in Malacca, worth RM435,000 and RM530,000 respectively and has taken RM650,000 in loans to pay for them.

He has RM298,785 in fixed deposits, with more than RM53,000 in earned interests besides investments in Amanah Mutual Bhd and Public Mutual Fund.

But there were no clues about the assets of the spouses and relatives, though. When asked about this, the CM was reported to have replied that the pledge was only for the assets of its leaders to be disclosed.

In the case of Selangor, the declaration of assets by the Mentri Besar and exco members in 2009 was basically in the form of their current earnings in salaries and allowances.

They decided not to include assets owned before the exco members held office, on the grounds of not being able to assure security for them or their family members.

Excos disclosed their assets privately to the MB’s office. The information, however, can be released for legitimate reasons, subject to conditions set and approved by the Special Select Committee on Competence, Accountability and Transparency or Selcat.

For political parties, Parti Sosialis Malaysia (PSM) holds the record for being the first to deliver the promise of declaring the assets of its elected and appointed representatives.

Since 2008, it has made public statutory declarations about what they own.

PSM’s sole MP, Michael Jeyakumar Devaraj – who unseated MIC supremo Datuk S. Samy Vellu in Sungei Siput – has been quoted as saying: “Once you become an assemblyman or MP, you must reveal the assets of yourself, your wife and your immediate family every year.”



An increasing number of countries have adopted similar ethics and even have anti-corruption laws requiring public officials to declare their assets and income, in addition to that of their spouses and dependant children.

In the US, for instance, the main law governing this is the Ethics in Government Act of 1978.

Based on last year’s declaration, President Barack Obama has assets worth at least US$4mil (RM12.48mil).

The amount includes book royalties, retirement funds, US Treasury bills and notes and other holdings.

In Malaysia, would all elected representatives from both sides of the political divide agree to be subject to such scrutiny?

As it is, many of our YBs are seen to be extremely well-heeled. They always claim to champion the cause of the rakyat but live in mansions worth millions and lead luxurious lifestyles.

Of course, they can always declare that they were already rich before being elected or appointed.

So, instead of waiting until they are elected, why not make it mandatory for all nominated candidates for Parliament and state seats to disclose their wealth and means of income and those of their immediate family?

Perhaps one way to ensure this is through compulsion – by an Act of Parliament.

One wonders if there would still be many people clamouring to be elected representatives or appointed representatives under such rules.

But we are at least making progress when it comes to the judiciary.

Chief Justice Tan Sri Arifin Zakaria has made a laudable move towards getting judges to declare their assets.

It is indeed a significant step towards improving transparency and integrity of our judiciary and changing the current public perception of the bench.

“I’m sure all of you have nothing to fear, so we have to work together with the MACC on this matter,” the CJ said at the judges’ conference last week.

The MACC has since set up a task force to identify the process under the civil service for the implementation.

The CJ has also told judges to maintain the independence of the judiciary and not to put up with any interference, including from their spouses, when making their decisions.

According to Transparency International’s Bribe Payers Index of 2008, the judiciary was perceived by surveyed business executives to be one of the most corrupt institutions in the country.

Business executives surveyed by the World Economic Forum Global competitiveness Report 2010-2011 identified the judicial system as being under enough influence of members of government, certain individuals and companies to constitute a competitive disadvantage.

They also found the efficiency of the legal framework for private companies to settle disputes and challenge government actions and/or regulations as another disadvantage.

The CJ’s move to boost the integrity of the judiciary is noteworthy in view of such negative perceptions.

The country cannot afford to have a judiciary perceived to be ethically compromised. It would be a millstone around the neck of any anti-corruption strategy.

As such, it needs the full support and cooperation of the people, members of the Bar, the Attorney-General’s Chambers and more so from the political leaders.

> Associate Editor M. Veera Pandiyan likes to share these wise words of Gandhi: “There is a higher court than courts of justice and that is the court of conscience. It supercedes all other courts.”