A corruption watchdog announced today that its survey of a town council in Selangor found that the "local government is a corruption minefield for the unwary".

The Kuala Lumpur Society for Transparency and Integrity, an affiliate of Transparency International, said that about half of the 976 respondents in its survey agreed that "bribery would be helpful in getting faster approvals for permits, licences, etc."

"The survey conclusively found that 14.5 percent of those interviewed had offered bribes to government officials. More than 50 percent of the respondents said that inefficiency on the part of government such as excessive regulations, ineffective laws and inadequate punishment as the major causes of corruption," said KLSTI's executive director Teresa Benedict in a press statement.

In the "Public opinion survey on local agencies in the Selayang Baru township" survey, 61 percent of the respondents said the government had not adequately punished those caught for corrupt practices.

More surveys

Benedict said the survey was the first by KLSTI to assess public perception of corruption in Malaysia. Similar surveys will be conducted on other town councils.

"The government had conducted several surveys of its own, but the findings have never been made available to the public," she said when contacted this afternoon.

Benedict said a public forum on the survey findings will be held at the Royal Selangor Club, Kuala Lumpur, on May 16.

"We believe it is vital to impart the results of this survey to the public at large and engage the public in discussions on what can be done to put in place measures that will bring about greater transparency and accountability in local government practices," she said.

The forum's panel will include research assistant M Chandrasekaran, a former faculty member of the Malaysian Institute of Management, and The Sun 's deputy editor R Nadeswaran. The session will be moderated by Malaysian Institute of Corporate Governance president Megat Najmuddin.