Malaysia has only managed to catch “ikan bilis” (anchovies) in its last two decades of the fight against corruption, which means there must be an all-out war on corruption to jail the “big fish”.
In a statement today, DAP Parliamentary leader Lim Kit Siang has asked the government to go after “tigers” and “crocodiles” instead of just the “ikan bilis”, or small fish, which is the term used to refer to small offenders, with regards to corruption.
Lim said this in relation to the upcoming revision to the 2015 National Budget, where he asked the government to “declare war” on corruption, incompetence and extravagance.
“Such a campaign would save the Malaysian government and taxpayers billions of ringgit, which would help the country tide through the looming economic crisis as a result of the fall in oil prices and commodities, and the weakening of the Malaysian ringgit,” Lim said.
Taking a swipe at the Malaysian Anti Corruption Commission (MACC), he said that it failed to catch the ‘big fish’ in the last 34 years under the reign of the last three Prime Ministers, Dr Mahathir, Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, and Najib Razak.
“Malaysia lags seriously behind other countries in the battle against corruption, particularly Indonesia and China, and Malaysia is at risk of being overtaken by these two countries, which had occupied the bottom two of rungs of the Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index two decades ago, in a matter of a decade,” he added, saying that MACC had little to show in terms of results despite its greatest investment in anti-corruption campaigns.
Currently, Malaysia is ranked ] 50 in the CPI, ahead of countries such as Philippines (85), Thailand (85), Indonesia (107), Vietnam ranked (119) and Laos (145); but far away from the Federal Government’s pledge of achieving number 30.
Indonesia, for example, rose from a CPI score of 1.7 in 2000 to 3.4 in 2014 and in 2013 arrested several high-profile individuals for corruption, including the republic’s top judge, Akil Mochtar.
Malaysia, on the other hand, has been stagnant at the mid-point for the past decade, barely budging a point or two each year despite the increasing calls for tough action against corruption.
The same success has not been seen here, as the highest-ranking individual to be accused of cheating the government was former Transport Minister Tun Ling Liong Sik. Ling was acquitted in 2013 after a two-year trial.
“Has the Prime Minister’s Department or the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission ever conducted a study why China could net “tigers” and Indonesia catch “crocodiles” while Malaysia has singularly failed to do, only able to get “ikan bilis” in the last two decades of the anti-corruption campaign?” Lim asked.
-The Rocket
