A survey by Transparency International (TI) found that Malaysians and Vietnamese viewed their respective countries as having the most severe corruption problem.

The survey, from July 15, 2015 to January this year, obtained the feedback of more than 20,000 citizens in 16 Asia Pacific countries.

The questions posed included if citizens believed the level of corruption has changed, how is the government fighting graft, how corrupt are the police and if people felt empowered to fight corruption.

The survey, titled "People and Corruption: Asia Pacific", also questioned respondents on whether they had given bribes themselves.

According to the survey, Malaysia and Vietnam performed the worst, with not a single positive rating to the questions.

“In these countries, the governments were rated poorly in their fight against corruption, people saw widespread corruption among the police, and many thought that corruption is on the rise.

“Fifty-nine percent of Malaysians think that the corruption level has increased,” said TI in its report.

With regard to the question on whether corruption level had increased, Malaysia was third after China and Indonesia.

To another question, 62 percent of Malaysians surveyed felt that the government did not battle corruption effectively.

Only 34 percent of those surveyed thought that the government was doing well in the battle to fight graft.

Other countries in the survey were South Korea, Hong Kong, India, Cambodia, Pakistan, Australia, Japan, Taiwan, Myanmar, Sri Lanka and Thailand.

In Malaysia, the survey was based on face-to-face interviews with 1,009 people.

Malaysia stood at eighth place in terms of bribery rates (23 percent), a practice happening almost equally in services such as public school, healthcare, police, utilities and permits, with less corruption in the
courts.

Out of the 16 countries, Australians have the most positive outlook against corruption in the survey.

Regionally, the study found that people below the age of 35 were more likely to pay bribes to gain access to public service.

Effective ways to tackle corruption, the survey said, were to report it (22 percent), refuse to take bribe (21 percent) and vote for clean political parties or candidates (six percent).

However, 21 percent of those surveyed were pessimistic over what ordinary people can do against corruption.