Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, who has made fighting corruption a centrepiece of his month-old administration, announced today that Malaysia would set up a regional anti-corruption academy.

Abdullah, who took over from former premier Dr Mahathir Mohamad on Oct 31, told an anti-corruption conference for Asia-Pacific countries that the government had approved a RM17 million allocation for the academy.

It would function "as a regional centre for anti-corruption capacity-building, promoting best practices in investigations, monitoring and enforcement, and in newer areas such as forensic accounting and forensic engineering," he said.

Describing the academy as "the first of its kind in the region", he invited governments to send representatives to discuss, share and learn from each other methods and tools to fight corruption.

In his first month in office, Abdullah has pledged repeatedly to fight corruption and abuses of power, issues for which Mahathir's administration was often criticised.

Creates bad name

Asked at a news briefing Wednesday why corruption seemed to make him angry, he replied: "It makes life difficult, it makes the government ineffective, and it creates a bad name for the government and for Malaysia. That's why I'm angry."

To demonstrate Malaysia's strong commitment to eradicating corruption, he said the government would also sign the United Nations' Anti-Corruption Convention later this month in Mexico.

"Every citizen must be the eyes and ears of the government in detecting and exposing corruption," he said, pledging that there would be "easy and convenient channels provided to the public to report corruption" and that whistleblowers would be given protection.

Policy-makers from 35 countries and representatives from business, civil society and the international donor community are attending the conference, the fourth such meeting organised by the Asian Development Bank and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development.

The ADB-OECD initiative was launched in Manila in 1999 and 21 countries have so far endorsed an "Anti-Corruption Action Plan" under which they are committed to combating bribery and money laundering and promoting public sector integrity.

The meeting in Kuala Lumpur, which ends Friday, aims to review progress and identify concrete solutions to problems in combating graft.

Geert van der Linden, ADB vice-president told the opening ceremony that "corruption harms the economy, undermines the rule of law and weakens public trust in government."

Efforts to eradicate poverty were hampered as an estimated one-third of public investment in many countries in the region was lost to corruption, he said, adding that studies showed it sometimes cost up to 17 percent of a country's Gross Domestic Product (GDP). - AFP