THAT Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim has admitted that Malaysia is losing out to Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam is a good sign that the once Asian tiger economy is coming out of denial syndrome after six decades of nation-building.
In fact, Anwar’s acknowledgement is all but crucial for a reset and a return to the original nation-building principles of Malaysia’s founding fathers to become a first-rate world-class nation, according to retired DAP supremo Lim Kit Siang.
“I have sounded like a broken record in my reiteration that after six decades of nation-building, Malaysia has fallen from the status of a first-rate world-class nation to become a second-rate mediocre country,” the 81-year-old veteran lawmaker pointed out in his latest blog.
“I do not want Malaysia to end up as a divided, failed and kleptocratic state in the next few decades just as I do not want the Anwar unity government to be toppled by another infamous Sheraton Move political conspiracy before it completes its term of five years.”
Kit Siang said Malaysia cannot reset and return to the original nation-building principles of the nation’s founding fathers unless “we admit that have strayed in our nation-building and lost out to one country after another with the latest example being the Transparency International (TI) Corruption Perception Index (CPI) 2022”.
“The two ‘backdoor’ governments of Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin and Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob could not continue with the anti-corruption efforts of the Pakatan Harapan (PH) government to achieve better results than the 1995 TI CPI but were responsible for another plunge in TI CPI to the lowest score in a decade and 62nd ranking out of 180 countries.”
Among ASEAN economies, Indonesia has progressively improved from 1995 to 34 out of 100 marks in 2022, while Malaysia has progressively regressed from 1995 to 47 points out of 100 marks in 2022.
“In the Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC) countries, we have lost out to United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia, and we stand to lose out to more OIC countries if we continue in the trajectory of decline in the TI CPI series,” warned the former Iskandar Puteri MP.
“The forthcoming Parliament should adopt a Charter of Public Integrity to propel Malaysia to be one of the top countries in the world in public integrity and on the anti-corruption front where the happiness of Malaysians should be the topmost government priority and not that of cronies and the political class as reflected in the most dismal report of TI CPI 2022.” – Feb 9, 2023
