The National Oversight and Whistleblowers (NOW) centre has volunteered to assist the government in creating a special corruption index for the country.

An independent body gauging levels of corruption in Malaysia was proposed by MACC chief commissioner Dzulkifli Ahmad (photo), in response to the country's recent slip down the rankings in Transparency-International's Corruption Perception Index for 2017.

NOW Director Akmal Nasir said in a statement that the nonprofit body is up to the task, based on its experience combating corruption through exposing scandals and protecting whistleblowers.

At the same time, he noted, the best way to boost Malaysia's score would be to increase prosecution and conviction of corruption cases in the country.

"In order to improve the public's confidence towards efforts to prevent corruption, corruption suspects should be put on trial and convicted, no matter their political background or status.

"This is the best response that the MACC can give to improve Malaysia's standing in the CPI 2017, so that we are not in the same league as countries like Cuba, Rwanda or Namibia," said Akmal, who also acknowledged the commission’s efforts to carry out various anti-corruption awareness programmes.

Dzulkifli had said that the proposal to create the special corruption index would be presented at the next Anti-Corruption Advisory Board meeting, before it is submitted to cabinet.

He also said that should the proposal be approved, a study would be carried out by independent bodies and academicians to ensure the transparency of the index.

After it was reported last week that Malaysia had slid seven places in the CPI 2017 to 62nd, Dzulkifli expressed his shock, saying that the downgrade did not reflect MACC's aggressiveness in fighting graft.

Bernama then quoted Dzulkifli as saying MACC would create its own special corruption index to assess the corruption level in the country, with the chief commissioner later clarifying that he was referring to an independent body.

Declining trend

In a separate statement, PKR Sungai Petani MP Johari Abdul (photo) pointed out that Malaysia's score on the CPI has been on the decline since 2014, from 52 points to 47.

He also said the trend would continue, unless actions are taken against individuals linked to the 1MDB scandal.

"This is the situation which we must face every year when this CPI report is released, until the biggest corruptor in our country is caught.

"While we see that neighbouring countries who are known for facing issues of corruption since over a decade ago have slowly recovered, Malaysia on the other hand has declined under Umno-BN," he said.