Lim Kit Siang

KUALA LUMPUR (Nov 18, 2009) : DAP stalwart Lim Kit Siang wants Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) chief commissioner Datuk Seri Ahmad Said Hamdan to resign over the country’s worst single-year plunge in the latest Transparency International (TI) Corruption Perception Index (CPI) ranking.

Speaking to reporters at the Parliament lobby today, Lim said the plunge in score - from 5.1 last year to 4.5 this year - was a national shame and a reflection of the newly formed MACC.

"(It) is a major blow for the new premiership of Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak who had declared that the fight against corruption was one of the six KPI (Key Performance Index) priorities of his administration," said Lim, who filed an emergency motion with Speaker Tan Sri Pandikar Amin to debate the issue in the Dewan today.

He said in Najib’s seven months of premiership, he had presided over the worst single-year plunge in TI CPI ranking and score.

Ahmad Said

"In the past 15 years, Malaysia had only fallen twice below the score of 5; 4.8 in 2000 and 4.9 in 2002," Lim pointed out.

The CPI scores countries on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the least corrupt. This year, Malaysia came out at number 56 out of the 180 countries in the world. Last year, it placed 47 with a CPI score of 5.1.

Lim also said the National Integrity Plan launched in 2004 with the five-year target to improve Malaysia’s TI CPI from the 37th placing in 2003 to at least the 30th position in 2008 was an utter failure.

"Nobody in the government now even dares mention this five-year National Integrity Plan 2004-2008," he said.

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