Malaysia has markedly improved in Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index (CPI) in 2019, jumping 10 spots from 61st in 2018 to be ranked 51 last year.
Malaysia’s score also showed a significant improvement, with an increase of six points from 47 in 2018 to 53 points last year. It is now ranked 51 out of 180 countries surveyed by the international graft watchdog.
CPI scores countries from 0 to 100, where 0 is highly corrupt and 100 is very clean.
Last year, Malaysia was No. 61 with a score of 47 points and in 2017, it scored the same points but ranked 62.
This is Malaysia’s highest score on the CPI since 2012, with the next highest score in 2014 with a score of 52 points.
Before 2012, the scores were measured on a 10-point scale before it was changed to a 100-point scale.
“The whole nation needs to be congratulated. It’s not just the enforcement people or the government, I think the public itself needs to be congratulated,” said Transparency International-Malaysia (TI-M) president Muhammad Mohan at the launch of the CPI 2019 results in Kuala Lumpur today.
CPI has been published annually since 1995 and ranks countries by the perceived level of public sector corruption as determined by expert assessments and opinion surveys.