Malaysians need to work together for higher CPI ranking - Najib

Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak has called on all Malaysians to fight corruption, aiming to improve its spot in Transparency International's Corruption Perception Index (CPI) to 30th by 2020.

Malaysia's position went up three places in the CPI 2014 to rank 50th out of the 175 countries surveyed. It was ranked 53rd last year.from 54th place last year to 53rd this year, with its CPI score moving a notch from 49 to 50.

Najib said the government has implemented many initiatives to combat corruption and fighting corruption is one of the NKRAs of the Government Transformation Programme (GTP) that was launched in 2010.

"Back then, we were ranked 56th in Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index (CPI)," he said in his blog, Thursday.

He said with the efforts of the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC), Integrity and Standard Compliance Department (ISCD) in the police force, Performance Management Delivery Unit (PEMANDU) and others, Malaysia managed to improve its ranking.

"At this position Malaysia is the second best in Southeast Asia and our best performance in 10 years," he said.

"Alhamdulillah, our transformation programme is on the right track," he added.

Najib said the CPI ranking is another encouraging indicator in addition to the improvement in the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business Report and GDP growth of 6.1 percent, the highest in Southeast Asia for the first 9 months of this year.

"Although an encouraging achievement, we must not rest on our laurels. Our target is to be on the 30th spot in 2020, and to achieve that, we need everyone working together to fight corruption," he said.

In Asean, Malaysia is ranked third, behind Singapore and Brunei, while globally, it managed to position itself better than other developed countries including Italy, Greece and the Czech Republic.

The annual survey, undertaken by Transparency International, gauges the perceived level of corruption in the public sector.

Malaysia scored 52 out of 100 (0 being most corrupt and 100 as corruption free), placing it as second least corrupted country in the ASEAN region, behind Singapore at seventh place.