PUTRAJAYA: The level of willingness, readiness and cooperation of the community to work with the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) in fighting corruption has increased every year since 2018, said MACC deputy chief commissioner (Prevention) Datuk Seri Shamshun Baharin Mohd Jamil.

He said based on MACC’s study on the Effectiveness of Anti-Corruption Measures, the level of community willingness rose from 82 per cent in 2018 to 82.7 per cent in 2019 and improved further to 86.3 per cent last year.

“The level of community readiness in 2018 was 81.1 per cent, 2019 (82.1 per cent) and 2020 (85.6 per cent) while the level of community cooperation in 2018 was 81 per cent, 2019 (81.8 per cent) and 2020 (84.6 per cent),” he said at the Strategic Engagement Programme with Media Practitioners in conjunction with the World Press Freedom Day here, today.

Through the study, he said the level of community knowledge on corruption has also increased every year, namely from 72.5 per cent in 2018 to 74.3 per cent in 2019 and 77.7 per cent in 2020.

At the event, Shamshun Baharin expressed his appreciation to media practitioners for the coverage, news reports and articles related to the MACC and graft prevention, which saw 32,132 articles and news reports published through various media over the past year.

Of the total, he said 8,486 articles were published in the print media, television (4,266), radio (345) and news portals (19,035).

Shamshun Baharin said each role of the MACC needs to be explained to the community frequently so that the public confidence level in the commission would increase further.

-- BERNAMA