Don't ignore 'duit kopi' corruption
Petty corruption - those that involved small sums of money - has a greater impact on the lives of the poor, warned the United Nations Development Program (UNDP).
The UN agency finds the issue important enough to publish a special report on what it called ‘petty’, ‘hidden’ and ‘street’ corruption, which is often referred to in Malaysia as ‘duit kopi’ (coffee money).
Petty corruption - those that involved small sums of money - has a greater impact on the lives of the poor, warned the United Nations Development Program (UNDP).
The UN agency finds the issue important enough to publish a special report on what it called ‘petty’, ‘hidden’ and ‘street’ corruption, which is often referred to in Malaysia as ‘duit kopi’ (coffee money).
According to the Asia-Pacific Human Development Report’s (APHDR) ‘Tackling Corruption, Transforming Lives’, among the damaging effects of corruption are weakened national institutions, inequitable social services and economic inefficiency.
"Grand corruption is misleading (us into thinking that small corruption is non-existant). There are big fishes but there are many small fishes too," said Transparency International Malaysia president Ramon V Navaratnam (photo, right) in launching the report today.
The report said Malaysia’s police force comes out tops in a survey on ‘duit kopi’ corruption. In an index where 1 is ‘least corrupt’ and 5 ‘most corrupt’, the police force scores 3.8.
It is followed by Registry and Permits (3.1), judiciary (2.8) and Tax Office (2.5), media (2.4 percent), education system (2.2), NGOs (2.2) and medical services (2.1).
“The people are affected when we get poor health service, poor education because of corruption and greed. We pay 10, 20, 30 percent more because of negotiated contracts,” added Navaratnam.
“The majority of the poor in the country are Malays, and the NEP (New Economic Policy) is seriously undermined by corruption.”
The APHDR report, the first of its kind, introduces no new index of its own to measure the level of corruption.
Instead the report refers to three key existing corruption indicators in corruption - World Bank's Control of Corruption Index (CCI), International Country Risk Guide’s Corruption Score (ICRG) and Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI).
These indexes are derived from wide-ranging surveys based on the perceptions of corruption among businessmen, academics and the general public.
The report finds an inverse trend - as human development increases, the level of corruption in the country tends to decrease.
Malaysia making some headway but...
According to two of the three indexes, Malaysia has made some headway in recent years in the fight against corruption.
It improved its score on the CCI from 0.25 to 0.38 in the period of 2005-2006.
On the CPI, there is a slight improvement - from 5.05 to 5.10 - in the period of 2005-2007. In both cases, higher values represent a lower level of corruption.
However, Malaysia decline from a score of 4.00 in 1996 to 2.38 in 2006 in the ICRG index, with a lower score representing greater corruption.
"The question to be asked here is, are we satisfied with the progress?" asked Navaratnam, who was accompanied by UNDP Malaysia officer-in-charge Daratul Baida Osman Khairuddin.
"I refer to the CPI index, Malaysia has a HDI (Human Development Index) of 0.8. Bhutan has a HDI of 0.6 and yet in terms of corruption perception, they are both at a 5. Despite of our development, we don't seem to improve on the corruption front," he lamented.
“We are doing not so bad, (but) we need to speed up our progress. We need a stronger dosage of medication, because if we don't recognise the critical point, instead of turning towards recovery, our condition can deteriorate further,” warned the TI president.
Meanwhile, Anis Yusal Yusoff from the Malaysian Institute of Integrity told journalists that the government’s actions taken to combat corruption should be highlighted by the media in order to change the public perception of corruption.
“Malaysia’s CPI is seen to be stagnant at the level of a 5. Efforts by the government, for example the Khazanah coloured book projects which provide GLCs (government-linked companies) a guideline of their conduct, should be highlighted,” he stressed.
APHDR is a special report by UNDP focusing on a variety of issues. The last report, released in 2006, is on human trafficking. It is expected to report on the plight of Asian women next.
