The Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission today breathed a sigh of relief over a global survey on corruption that it says showed more Malaysians believe the government's efforts in fighting graft this year have been more effective than last year.

transparency international global corruption barometer 101210Earlier today, Transparency International Malaysia announced that 48 percent of Malaysians surveyed in the Global Corruption Barometer said that they believed the government's anti-corruption efforts are effective.

This is a leap from only 28 percent last year, and exceeds the government target, under the national key performance indicator for corruption, that 37 percent of the people would feel its efforts against graft were effective.

"Evidently, members of the public are more aware and appreciative of the hard work that the government and anti-corruption institutions have put in to ensure that the country is free from corruption," the commission said in a statement this evening.

Failure to stop 'grand corruption'

It also noted that its "war against bribe givers is clearly bearing fruit", as only 90 out of the 1,000 Malaysian respondents admitted to have given a bribe in the past year.

However, the survey also found that 46 percent of the respondents believed that corruption is on the rise, which Transparency International-Malaysia president Paul Low attributed to MACC's failure to stop "grand corruption".

According to MACC, the growing faith in the government could be attributed to a "slew of government initiatives", including the "daring move" to improve the Corruption Perception Index (CPI) score from 4.5 to 4.9.

This is yet to be met as the 2010 CPI scores for Malaysia show a slight dip.

Other efforts taken by the government include the enactment of the Whistleblower Protection Act, that will come into force on Dec 15, the formation of an independent review panel for MACC and the publishing of tenders awarded on the MyProcurement website.

The MACC also credits its move to "name and shame" those convicted of graft in a public database and the implementation of Transparency International's Integrity Pact in procurements in April 2010.

However, Low said this morning that the pact was yet to be fully implemented.

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