LAST year, Malaysia was ranked 57 among 180 countries in the Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI). Not a good place to be at, especially when our neighbour, Singapore, is up there at No. 5. Not that there aren't any corrupt public officials down south.
We just saw an ex-minister imprisoned. But that is not the point. How the city-state got to be ranked No. 5 is the right question to ask.
As our Mid-Term 12th Malaysia Plan says, we are aiming to be among the top 25 countries by 2033. A realistic target, given the corrosive stage corruption has reached in our civil service.
A steep climb, but a must-do. This is what the task force, which met on Oct 3, and several clusters set up to get Malaysia there are aiming to do, according to news agency Bernama.
But why is eradicating corruption a mountain to climb? There are two reasons for this. One is that Malaysia's story is a case of too little too late. Once it reaches a corrosive stage, which it has, the battle is against the endemic.
Two, we tend to think of corruption in very narrow terms: the taking and giving of money. Corruption is more. It is any abuse of public office for private gains.
But let's start with the issue of money. Studies by the World Bank and others show that in countries where corruption is endemic, the cost of procurement is at least 25 per cent higher than it should be.
This doesn't include cost overruns due to kickbacks. Of late, bid rigging has become a favourite of companies engaged in public procurement. Add these two and we easily surpass the 25 per cent. And that is just one corrupt cluster, so to speak. Taxes are another.
In an 180-country study done by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in 2019, it found that in corrupt countries, people pay less taxes because they pay bribes to avoid them.
Fighting corruption also means building ethically strong and transparent institutions, our point about corruption being more than the giving and taking of money. Public scrutiny of public projects will help.
The IMF quotes the example of Colombia, Costa Rica and Paraguay where people are allowed to monitor the physical and financial progress of investment projects through an online platform.
A free press will give an added boost to the external oversight. This newspaper has invested much in investigative journalism in the cause of fighting corruption.
Exposes have been many, some of them have resulted in reforms of public entities. Yes, a free press makes this possible. Corruption is the greatest challenge any government can face. Because it stands in the way of the government's intent to share the country's prosperity with its citizens.
Poverty is still with us for this reason. Money that should go to the poor is being pocketed by those who are supposed to hand it to them. Money is not the problem, but the greed for it is.
If the clusters can find a way to keep the greedy out of the civil service, Malaysia can be among the table toppers, not just among the top 25.