COMMENT | In the famous words of Kurt Cobain, “the duty of the youth is to challenge corruption”. While many of us think that corruption is plain and simple as paying someone else in order to get an illegal benefit, there are many other forms of corruption that we are ignoring.

The list includes issuing false claims and using your position of power to further one’s personal interest. I think it is about time that we, as a nation, wake up to combat this cancerous tumour before it destroys us all.

How bad is corruption in Malaysia and what does the society think about it? Currently we rank depressingly low, at 55 in the Corruption Perception Index and 41 percent of the people surveyed by Transparency International-Malaysia for the 2017 Global Corruption Barometer (GCB) – Asia Pacific Region has expressed a lack of trust in Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak and his officials.

Washington-based group Global Financial Integrity states that there is a US$48.93 billion outflow of illegal cash in 2012. The magnitude of corruption in our country is hurting people, especially those in the lower strata of economy in which, if the money reached its supposed destination, it would be used for their benefit. Corruption is something that we must combat together.

Are we serious in combating corruption? Are we doing enough to combat it? A recent finding from the Global Corruption Barometer shows only 50 percent of people are willing to combat corruption. That number might seem alarming.

But a scrutiny of the survey will show most are afraid of reporting against corruption because of fear of suffering retaliation or other negative consequences as a consequence of reporting corruption. What can be deduced now is people want a change in the paradigm to combat corruption and a layout on how to combat corruption will be key in winning the upcoming election.

The same survey established that 60 percent of the people doing the survey feel corruption is on a rise. The conclusion, therefore, is that there is a will among citizens to combat corruption and this need has to be catered.

Unfortunately, status quo woefully misses out on this. This is despite an overhaul made at the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) in 2009. However, despite all the bad seeds, there are two shining examples of state governments that are trying hard to reduce this cancer.

The top two best performing states in the war against corruption would be Selangor and Penang. Coincidentally both these states belong to Pakatan Harapan. The key strategy that these states employ are Competency, Accountability and Transparency (CAT), under the Penang government, and Selangor’s freedom of information law...