MACC Chief Urges Students to Make Malaysia Corruption-Free

The Chief Commissioner of the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC), Datuk Abu Kassim Mohamed, has called on the younger generation to help stamp out corruption.

In particular he called on young Malaysians studying in tertiary education institutions to take the high ground and help make sure that Malaysia’s future was no longer a place where corruption could be accepted as a norm.

“The MACC endeavours to strengthen the inculcation of noble values and integrity in curbing corruption,” Abu Kassim said.

“And higher learning institutions can be effective conduits for the MACC to get the anti-corruption message across to the community in and outside the campus.”

He was speaking on Monday at the Institutions of Higher Learning Corruption Prevention Secretariat Convention 2013 at the Universiti Malaysia Sabah (UMS) main campus in Likas.

The MACC Chief Commissioner said that while the efforts of his agency have achieved successful results, the task to make sure that corruption was the exception in the future rather than the rule was something that would require a significant social shift.

He explained that while it was the ‘big fish’ which often attracted the most attention in the media, the smaller offenders shared just as much responsibility in infecting society.

Tackling corruption has been a top priority of the government and reforms have paved the way for MACC to root out the problem at all levels.

On the back of this determined crackdown, last year Malaysia moved up 6 places in the global Corruption Perceptions Index to 54th spot.

Transparency International-Malaysia (TI-M) president Datuk Paul Low said that Malaysia’s position had improved, “indicating that many steps undertaken by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak through the Government Transformation Programme (GTP) to fight corruption have shown results.”

MACC had earlier improved its performance in 2011, with a conviction rate of 74 per cent, compared to 71 per cent in 2010 and 54 per cent in 2009.