The police force is ranked the most corrupt of all government agencies, according to a ground-breaking survey among local residents in Selayang, a suburb about six kilometres northeast of Kuala Lumpur.

In the survey of about 1,000 Selayang Municipal Council ratepayers, the police were deemed as 'highly corrupt' by 59.5 percent of the respondents.

The Road Transport Department came a distant second (19.6 percent), followed by the municipal council (7.3 percent), land office (5.5 percent), judicial office (1.1 percent), Health Department (0.7 percent), Environment Department (0.4 percent) and Fire Department (0.3 percent).

The study is conducted jointly by the Malaysian Institute of Management and the Kuala Lumpur Society for Transparency and Integrity in Selayang Baru and Bandar Baru Selayang, which have a population of 164,000 people.

"The Selayang Baru public was of the opinion that bribing could ease matters when dealing with government agencies, a belief strongly held particularly among the Chinese community," stated the survey

"This unfortunate view of government administration must be reversed if public confidence in certain government agencies is to be restored."

The findings were released last week at the "Putting local council governance under the spotlight: Is local council governance up to the mark?" forum organised by Transparency International Malaysia, a anti-corruption watchdog.

The study, which is funded by the Netherlands Embassy in Kuala Lumpur, was based on a strata sampling of 250 each from among users of local council services, hawkers, shop owners and households.

However, the hawkers and users of local council counter services are under-represented and householders are over-represented due to availability for interviews. The survey also noted that 43 percent of respondents were owners of small businesses.

Corruption generally condoned

The survey also revealed that corruption was generally condoned by about 60 percent of business owners and higher-income group.

It found that respondents who owned businesses and those in the higher-income group were most likely to be approached for bribes.

However, this group is also more likely to mention that the government did not act quickly on complaints against corruption.

They felt that complaints should be addressed urgently by the relevant authorities such as the Public Complaints Bureau, the ACA and the local council's own complaints department.

"This is evidenced by the fact that respondents reported having had to waste a great deal of time and effort on following up on their complaints before knowing the outcome."

While businesspersons generally blamed the civil service's inefficiency for breeding corruption, half the respondents comprising householders, users of local council counters, higher-income group and females, felt that public indifference towards corruption is the main cause.

The survey recommended continual civic education over radio, television and in the print media to increase public awareness on the implications of corruption.

Respondents of the survey numbered 979, comprising 582 Malays, 261 Chinese, 125 Indians and 11 others (Bangladeshis and Indonesians) in the 30-39 age group, with men outnumbering women 684 to 295.