DAP has called for MACC chief commissioner Tan Sri Azam Baki’s resignation following his dismissal of Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index (TI-CPI) as a legitimate yardstick for corruption.
Yesterday, Astro Awani reported Azam as saying that the TI-CPI is merely a measured perception by several organisations and does not reflect the actual position.
He also pointed out Malaysia, ranked 62nd on the TI-CPI, was better than Vietnam (87th), Indonesia (96th) and Thailand (110th).
In response to Azam, DAP chairperson Lim Guan Eng said in a statement of Facebook today that the MACC chief should resign for questioning the “veracity, credibility and reliability” of the TI-CPI which is accepted by all countries globally and multilateral institutions such as the United Nations (UN), World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
“Is Azam bearing a grudge to undermine TI merely because for the 2021 CPI, Malaysia dropped five spots to rank 62 out of 180 countries, the lowest ranking in history?” he asked.
“The CPI for this year is expected to decline even further with many corruption charges being used as a political weapon against opposition MPs, as well as the charges against pro-government MPs withdrawn or not prosecuted even though arrests have been made.”
Lim went on to point out that Azam himself was being accused of wrongdoing involving his large equity stake in a public listed company.
“His own abuse of power with unaccountable extraordinary wealth in trading and owning millions of ringgit worth of company shares have failed to set a good example while exposing the scandal of a law enforcer being a law-breaker,” he remarked.
“How can Malaysia’s CPI improve when MACC is seen as covering up instead of exposing corruption, especially committed by the highest levels of the country’s leadership?
“If the CPI by TI is not seen as a reliable and credible yardstick, then what global standard would Azam propose as an alternative?” – July 22, 2022
