Malaysia’s ranking on the Corruption Perception Index (CPI) had improved by three places this year, Transparency International-Malaysia (TI-M) announced today.

According to its annual survey, Malaysia scored 52/100 points and ranked 50/175 this year, compared to 50/100 points and rank 53 out of 177 last year .

TI-M president Akhbar Satar, who announced the results, attributed the continuous improvement since 2011 mainly to the introduction of the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) Act in 2009.

Malaysia’s ranking was at its worst in 2011 with the rank of 60 out of 183, but has been improving each year thereafter. Pemandu is aiming to place Malaysia in the top 30 by the year 2020.

CPI scores are computed based on a country’s performance over the past two years, Akhbar pointed out, based on a number of other surveys.

Among the eight surveys used to determine Malaysia’s score this year, however, he said Malaysia performed poorly on the Political Risk Services International Country Risk Guide 2014, which in turn reduced its score.

“Maybe we have too much politicking. So we lost here, we only got 41 percent. If we look into this area, then there is possibility that we can improve,” he said.

Asked to elaborate, Akhbar said good political stability would result in a lower CPI.

He also pointed out that TI’s Corruption Barometer survey this year has found that Malaysian regard political parties to be the most corrupt institution, followed by the police force.

Now on par with Samoa and Georgia

As for this year’s rankings, Akhbar ( left ) revealed that Malaysia’s score is now on par with Samoa and Georgia, and just ahead of the Czech Republic and behind Mauritius.

Denmark has maintained its global top position with a score of 92, followed by New Zealand (91) and Finland (89).

“Strong access to information systems and rules governing the behaviour of those in public positions” have been cited as the reason for Denmark’s success.

Singapore’s ranking fell from the fifth position to the seventh, but it remains the top performer in the Asean region.

However, since the previous year’s Asean second-best performer Brunei is not surveyed this year due to a lack of data, Malaysia’s ranking in the region climbed from third place to the second.

The worst performing country in the world is Somalia for the 11th consecutive year, with a score of eight and rank of 174, and tying with North Korea.

The worst performer in the Asean region are Cambodia and Myanmar, which tied at 156th position with a score of 21.

Elaborating on the CPI scores, Akhbar said a study has found that a one-point increase in the CPI score is correlated with a 1.7 percent increase in gross domestic product (GDP).

On the other hand, another study had found that a two percent drop in CPI score is correlated with a 0.5 percent drop in GDP growth rate, and four percent decrease in investments.

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