Corruption in Malaysia

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A quarter of the surveyed households consider the government's efforts in the fight against corruption in Malaysia to be ineffective.^[1] According to a 2013 public survey by Transparency International, a majority of the surveyed households perceived Malaysian political parties to be highly corrupt.^[1] As of 2023, corruption in Malaysia generally involves political connections still playing an important role in the outcome of public tenders.^[2]

Business executives surveyed in the World Economic Forum's Global Competitiveness Report 2013-2014 reveal that unethical behaviours of companies constitute a disadvantage for doing business in Malaysia.^[3] Government contracts are sometimes awarded to well-connected companies, and the policies of awarding huge infrastructure projects to selected Bumiputera companies without open tender continue to exist.^[4]

On 28 July 2020, former prime minister Najib Razak was convicted on seven counts of abuse of power, money laundering and criminal breach of trust by a Malaysian High Court in relation to the 1Malaysia Development Berhad scandal. He was sentenced to 12 years' imprisonment and fined RM210 million.^[5]

Corruption Perceptions Index[edit]

Transparency International's 2022 Corruption Perceptions Index, which scored 180 countries on a scale from 0 ("highly corrupt") to 100 ("very clean"), gave Malaysia a score of 47. When ranked by score, Malaysia ranked 61st among the 180 countries in the Index, where the country ranked first is perceived to have the most honest public sector.^[6] For comparison with worldwide scores, the best score was 90 (ranked 1), the worst score was 12 (ranked 180), and the average score was 43.^[7] For comparison with regional scores, the highest score among Asia Pacific countries Template:Refn was 87, the lowest score was 17 and the average score was 45.^[8] As of 2023, Malaysia's score has fallen each year since a high of 53 in 2018.^[7][9]

Transparency International lists ^[10] Malaysia's key corruption challenges as:

1. Political and Campaign Financing: Donations (e.g.: USD700Million) from both corporations and individuals to political parties and candidates are not limited in Malaysia. Political parties are also not legally required to report on what funds are spent during election campaigns. Due in part to this political landscape, Malaysia's ruling party for over 55 years has funds highly disproportionate to other parties. This unfairly impacts campaigns in federal and state elections and can disrupt the overall functioning of a democratic political system.
2. “Revolving door”: Individuals regularly switch back and forth between working for both the private and public sectors in Malaysia. Such circumstances – known as the ‘revolving door’ – allow for active government participation in the economy and public-private relations to become elusive. The risk of corruption is high and regulating public-private interactions becomes difficult, also allowing for corruption to take place with impunity. Another factor which highlights the extent of ambiguity between the public sector and private corporate ownership is that Malaysia is also a rare example of a country where political parties are not restricted in possessing corporate enterprises.
3. Access to information: As of April 2013, no federal Freedom of Information Act exists in Malaysia. Although, Selangor and Penang are the only Malaysian states out of thirteen to pass freedom of information legislation, the legislation still suffers from limitations. Should a federal freedom of information act be drafted it would conflict with the Official Secrets Act – in which any document can be officially classified as secret, making it exempt from public access and free from judicial review. Additional laws such as the Printing Presses and Publications Act, the Sedition Act 1949 (subsequently replaced with the National Harmony Act), and the Internal Security Act 1969 also ban the dissemination of official information and offenders can face fines or imprisonment.^[11] Malaysia suffers from corporate fraud in the form of intellectual property theft.^[12] Counterfeit production of several goods including IT products, automobile parts, etc., are prevalent.^[12]

In 2013, Malaysia was identified in a survey by Ernst and Young as one of the most corrupt countries in the region according to the perceptions of foreign business leaders, along with neighbouring countries and China. The survey asked whether it was likely that each country would take shortcuts to achieve economic targets.^[13]

Types of corruption[edit]

Corruption in Immigration Enforcement[edit]

Despite periodic actions by the government to crack down on petty corruption in the Immigration Department, bribe-taking and fraudulent issuance of visas has been a long-standing problem, particularly among immigration officers at the KLIA and KLIA2 terminals of Kuala Lumpur International Airport.^[14][15][16] In 2016, the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) uncovered a scheme in Selangor, in which immigration officers collected passport application fees from travellers and then submitted fraudulent paperwork declaring them disabled, resulting in fee waivers that amounted to over 1 million Malaysian ringgit by the time the scheme was exposed.^[17] In a December, 2016 statement to the Malaysian press, Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi estimated that over half of the 1500 immigration officers working in the KLIA and KLIA2 terminals had participated in a range of corrupt practices, including fraudulent issuance of visas, tampering with Immigration Department data, and collusion with human-trafficking agents.^[15]

List of corruption case[edit]

Attribution[edit]

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Footnotes[edit]