TI-M: Sabah graft scandal might affect M'sia corruption ranking

Summary

• TI-M believes the corruption scandal involving Sabah leaders might affect Malaysia’s Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) in 2025 but was likely not reflected in the 2024 ranking.

• Its president says Malaysia’s CPI 2024 rank stayed at 57th place, attributed to lenient legal actions on high-profile cases and frequent “discharges not amounting to acquittals” (DNAAs).

• The Whistleblower Protection Act only protects those reporting to enforcement agencies and does not apply to the whistleblower in the Sabah scandal, Muhammad Mohan adds.

The recent corruption scandal implicating several Sabah leaders might impact Malaysia’s ranking in this year’s global Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI).

Transparency International Malaysia (TI-M) president Muhammad Mohan said the scandal, which came to light towards the end of last year, might not have been captured in the just-released CPI 2024.

“Very likely no, because this happened at the tail end of the year (2024). Normally they (CPI researchers) would have consolidated the data in August or September, so maybe it’s not captured.

“But it could capture in 2025 because of its perception,” he said during a briefing session in Petaling Jaya, Selangor, earlier today.

Muhammad (above) revealed during the briefing that Malaysia’s ranking in CPI 2024 has remained stagnant at the 57th spot, out of 180 countries, after it again scored 50 points.

Topping the list was Denmark with 90 points while Singapore was third (84 points), Indonesia was 100th (37 points), and Thailand came in at 111th (34 points).

TI-M believed that the score was due to several factors, including revised jail sentences and fines on high-profile cases, and the high number of “discharges not amounting to acquittals” (DNAAs) given for high-profile cases.

Muhammad was then asked if the alleged corruption involving Sabah elected representatives could have caused the stagnant performance.

Whistleblower Protection Act

To a question on the authorities’ alleged slow action over the scandal, Muhammad pointed out a challenge they faced due to the Whistleblower Protection Act.

He said the law specified that a whistleblower can only be protected when he or she complains to enforcement agencies.

“Under the law, they can only report to the enforcement agencies. If you report to (others) outside the enforcement agencies, then you can’t (be treated as a whistleblower).

“I don’t want to speculate what is the reason, why that person chose not to report even though he had the chance.

“So technically, you can’t call (the person a) whistleblower in our country’s law, because you decided to expose it to the media and so on, and that becomes a challenge at this point based on our law,” Muhammad explained.

Since November, Malaysiakini published a series of articles about several Sabah leaders who allegedly took bribes from a businessperson in exchange for their support for a mineral exploration licence to be granted.

Chief Minister Hajiji Noor dismissed the allegations and said the videos implicating the assemblypersons were edited, though he later suggested that it may have captured discussions about political donations rather than bribes.

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