The Anti-Corruption Agency (ACA) has received 64 complaints so far this year, Deputy Minister in the Prime Minister's Department M Kayveas said today.

Of these, 28 were taken to court, while 15 individuals were cleared of wrongdoing. The agency is investigating the remaining 21 complaints.

"Last year, the ACA received 64 complaints. It referred 45 to court, cleared 17 people and is (still) investigating three cases," he told a press conference at the Parliament lobby.

In the Dewan Rakyat earlier, he stressed that his department - which oversees the work of the ACA - routinely carries out public awareness campaigns against corruption.

Since 2001, for instance, the ACA has worked together with the Registrar (now Commissioner) of Companies to conduct courses nationwide for about 800,000 company directors.

Kayveas emphasised the importance of early education against corruption, saying students should be taught the "value of hating corruption".

He was replying to a question from Bung Mokhtar Raidin (BN-Kinabatangan) during the Dewan Rakyat question session.

Better checks in store?

He was also asked whether the government would emulate Finland, Singapore or Sweden in tackling graft.

These countries had been ranked higher than Malaysia in the recent-released Transparency International's latest Corruption Perception Index (CPI).

Kayveas said that, despite the drop in Malaysia's ranking from 33 to 37, the country had improved its overall score from 4.9 to 5.2.

He said the government would consider whether or not to emulate the policies and practices of higher-ranking countries because not all of these may be suitable for Malaysia.

The CPI score relates to perceptions of the degree of corruption in 133 countries as seen by business people, academics and risk analysts. The rating ranges between 10 (highly clean) and 0 (highly corrupt).

The latest report, released early this month, ranked Finland (9.7) first on the list, followed by Iceland (9.6), Denmark and New Zealand (9.5 each) and Singapore (9.4).

At the other end of the scale, Bangladesh (1.3) was ranked last, with Nigeria (1.4), Haiti (1.5), Burma and Paraguay (1.6) marginally ahead.

DAP chairperson Lim Kit Siang had commented that Malaysia's ranking showed the country had failed to make any headway in the fight against corruption.

Last week, Kayveas had revealed that the Home Ministry tops the list of 22 ministries against which complaints of corruption had been received.