If the amount of illicit funds siphoned out of Malaysia every year is matched with the population, Malaysia would emerge as a "world champion" in corruption, DAP secretary general Lim Guan Eng said.

NONEReferring to the Washington-based financial watchdog Global Financial Integrity (GFI) report that placed Malaysia fourth in the world in terms of illicit outflow, Lim (left) pointed out that Malaysia has the smallest population among all the top ten countries in terms of illicit outflow.

"Every country on the top 10 list of shame, has a population larger than Malaysia.

"There is no doubt that on a per capita basis, Malaysia wins hands down as the world champion of corruption," he said in a statement today.

GFI said that Malaysia had an illicit outflow of RM 173.84 billion, lagging only behind major economies Russia, China and India- with all three being among the most populated countries in the world.

"With a total of RM1.2 trillion or USD370.38 billion lost from dirty money between 2002-11, this huge loss of funds from dirty money is larger than Malaysia's GDP this year or next year," Lim said further.

He suggested that Malaysia follow the British example of creating a central public registry of corporate beneficial ownership information to stop dirty money outflow.

"Clearly Bank Negara Malaysia has been ineffective and incompetent at best and at worst downright irresponsible and criminally negligent in stopping the illicit outflow of funds despite setting up a task force in 2010 to implement measures to stop the outflow of dirty money," he said.