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Even if corruption makes up less than one percent of the RM174 billion estimated loss through illegal outflow of money in 2011, it is still a large amount to lose to graft, PKR said.

NONE Rebutting Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Paul Low and Bank Negara Malaysia, PKR de facto leader Anwar Ibrahim added that the Goods and Services Tax (GST) will not bring down illicit outflow as claimed.

"Saying that only a small part makes up corruption is irrelevant. Even if the amount is RM1 billion, it is still a large amount.

"And the latest statement by Bank Negara is that the GST will help bring down illicit outflow and trade mispricing.

"The GST has no impact on this, for exported goods are zero-rated," Anwar, who is opposition leader and Permatang Pauh MP, told reporters today.

He added that the issue of trade mispricing is actually the purview of the Inland Revenue Board as this is an attempt to evade tax, and that existing provisions can already cut down on this.

He also urged the government not to “hide behind statistics” and address the issue at hand.

gfi illicit financial outflows 2002-2011 Anwar was responding to a report by Washington-based think-tank Global Financial Integrity which estimated that Malaysia lost about RM174 billion in illicit outflow due to tax evasion, corruption and other crimes.

The report, released last week, placed Malaysia in the fourth spot in the list of countries with the highest amount of illicit outflow in 2011.

Bank Negara Malaysia said the amount should be at least 70 percent less as it does not take into account re-exports via Singapore.

It also claimed that trade mispricing, which GFI said made up 80 percent of illicit outflows from each country on average, will be reduced with GST.

The remainder 20 percent is classified by GFI as “hot money”, that is money flowed out via crime like drug smuggling and corruption.

Minister Low, meanwhile, claimed that his ballpark estimation is that corruption only made up 3 percent of the remainder involves corruption.

Although Low stressed that this is not an exact and verifiable figure, this comes up to about RM1 billion.