MACC chief commissioner Mohd Shukri Abdull recounted today that he felt so embarrassed about Malaysia’s corruption levels when on a trip abroad in 2016 that he pretended to be an Indonesian national.
“When someone asked me in English where I was from, I was ashamed to say I was from Malaysia, so I said I was an Indonesian.
“That was our state of (corruption) at that time,” he told a forum in Putrajaya this morning.
Shukri, who has more than three decades’ experience in fighting graft, retired in October 2016 but was appointed to helm MACC after Pakatan Harapan won the last general election.
The chief commissioner also noted how the country’s Corruption Perception Index (CPI) fell from 52 percent in 2014 to 47 percent in 2017.
“In 2014, Malaysia recorded 52 percent in CPI. It is a barely passable score, like a C-grade,” he said.
“In 2015, our score reduced to 50. It went down to 49 percent in 2016 and in 2017, we obtained 47 percent,” he said.
He also drew the conclusion also from the findings of KPMG’s Fraud, Bribery and Corruption Survey, as well as surveys conducted by Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia and Transparency International’s Global Corruption Barometer.
“It is getting worse. It is worrying indeed, Malaysia is known to the world as a ‘kleptocracy’ (due to the 1MDB scandal), not a country with integrity.
“It is shameful,” he lamented.
Shukri also said that he preferred to be honest about the state of corruption in Malaysia, instead of sugarcoating the issue.
“Often when people ask if the corruption in Malaysia was improving or getting worse, the speaker (from MACC) would say it is under control.
“I don’t like to say anything that is not true. I’d rather spell it out frankly,” he added.
The 2017 CPI, which was released in February this year, ranked Malaysia 62nd out of 180 countries, putting the country on par with Cuba.
This was Malaysia’s lowest-ever performance since the CPI was introduced in 1994. – Malaysiakini