Malaysia’s mere one-spot jump in the latest Corruption Perception Index (CPI) 2013 rankings indicates the country’s lack of seriousness in tackling grand corruption, said Serdang MP Ong Kian Ming.

NONE In the results of the surve y released by Transparency International yesterday, Malaysia went up one spot to 53 among 177 countries polled, from its 54th place ranking last year.

Ong said it was no wonder the public perception of government’s efforts against corruption was affected when “big fish” such as former MCA president Ling Liong Sik was not successfully prosecuted and convicted over the multi-billion Port Klang Free Zone (PKFZ) scandal, and whose judgement was not even appealed by the attorney-general .

He noted BN MPs were a no-show at an event organised by Institute of Democracy and Economic Affairs (Ideas) yesterday aimed to educating and updating lawmakers on the fight against corruption, with Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Paul Low being the only government representative present.

Ong said a closer look at the survey showed that Malaysia merely overtook Georgia, which fell from 51st position in 2012 to 55th position in 2013.

Otherwise, he said Malaysia is still lagging behind neighbours in Asia and the Middle East including Singapore (ranked 5), Hong Kong (15), Japan (18), United Arab Emirates (26), Qatar (28), Bhutan (31), Taiwan (36), Brunei (38) and South Korea (46).

"This marginal improvement is unacceptable given the hundreds of millions of ringgit spent on improving transparency and reducing corruption, including the efforts under the Anti-Corruption National Key Results Area (NKRA) as part of the dovernment transformation programme (GTP).

He noted that the combined budget for MACC and NAD will rise by 17 percent to RM467 million next year, with RM298 million allocated to the MACC for 2014 and RM169 million to the NAD.

lim kit siang sg limau by election 021113 03 "Given this increased budget, the improvement in Malaysia’s CPI score and ranking for 2014 has to be significantly better than 2013," he said.

Meanwhile, veteran opposition leader Lim Kit Siang ( right ) challenged the claim by Performance Management Delivery Unit (Pemandu) chief executive officer Idris Jala that Malaysia was on its targetting to be among the top 30 in the CPI ranking by 2020.

Lim said that in the last 19 years, Malaysia achieved the dubious distinction as one of the countries which had slipped downwards both in Transparency International’s CPI ranking and score.

To proof his point, Lim noted that Malaysia's rank in 2013 is now below Taiwan, Spain and South Korea - countries which were seen as more corrupt than Malaysia in 1995.

"It (Malaysia) is also now at risk of being overtaken by countries including China and Indonesia which had been at the bottom of ransparency International’s CPI in 1995," Lim wrote in a statement.