SHAH ALAM, 15 May: The actions of leaving and re-entering by three Umno Assemblymen within 24 hours yesterday is as though affirming the latest Malaysian Corruption Barometre (MCB) 2014 survey which shows that politicians are believed to be most involved in corruption.
These three Assemblymen include the Terengganu Chief Minister, who is as the Assemblyman for Kijal, Datuk Seri Ahmad Said; Roslee Daud (Bukit Besi) and Ghazali Taib (Ajil).
The Chief Minister of Penang, Lim Guan Eng, said that no one believes that the 3 Terengganu UMNO Assemblymen quit because of unhappiness over the former Terengganu Menteri Besar daughter’s wedding,
The DAP Secretary-General, said that tt is such unprincipled UMNO politicians that leads the public to consider that trustworthy politicians don’t exist anymore.
“Datuk A. Kadir Jasin former group chief editor of The News Straits Times managed to raise questions of underhand tactics and dirty politics.
“Datuk Kadir even predicted that the three Umno assemblymen turned independent candidates could change their minds if the “price is right”. Kadir Jasin’s “price is right” prediction turned out to be proven right.
MCB’s latest survey show of the 2,000 respondents surveyed, 45% of Malaysians perceive political parties to be the most corrupt, followed by the police (42%), public officials and civil servants (31%) and parliament and legislature (23%).
This is the first time that politicians are seen as most corrupt compared to the results of previous studies that often shows that the people believe that the police force is most corrupt.
Only 28 % believe that the government is effective in tackling corruption, the lowest in 5 years as compared to 31% last year.
How serious corruption is in Malaysia can be seen when The Wall Street Journal and Transparency International have declared Malaysia as the world champion of corruption with RM1.2 trillion of illicit funds outflow over 10 years from 2002-2011, as well as no action against wrongdoings and excessive spending exposed in the 2012 Auditor-General’s Report involving RM6.5 billion.
