Raising civil servants’ wages won’t curb corruption, says MACC chief
Published on: Monday, June 17, 2024
By: FMT Reporters
MACC chief commissioner Azam Baki said corruption is about greed, opportunities, and systemic flaws in procedures and governance that people use for their own benefit .
PETALING JAYA: Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) chief commissioner Azam Baki has cautioned against simply raising the wages of civil servants without addressing deeper issues that create opportunities for corruption.
Azam said increasing civil servant salaries alone will not curb corruption, as low wages and poverty are not the main factors behind corruption in the civil service.
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“If some people think that (corruption) is due to low wages, my advice to the government is, stay cautious, don’t keep on increasing salaries for nothing,” he said in an interview with New Straits Times.
“You may think that it (increasing salaries) will reduce corruption (but) it is about other things. It is about greed, opportunities, and systemic flaws in procedures and governance that people use for their own benefit.”
On May 1, Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim announced that the wages of civil servants would be increased by more than 13% and that it would be implemented from December this year.
Later, chief secretary to the government Zuki Ali was reported to have said that the number of corruption convictions among civil servants decreased to 70 in 2021 and went down even further to 21 in 2022.
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However, in 2019, MACC reported that 63.3% of the corruption complaints it received were related to the public sector.
In the interview, Azam called for anti-graft activists and NGOs to also consider other factors and reports when criticising the corruption that happens in the country.
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He said he disagreed with Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI), despite Malaysia’s rank improving from 61 in 2022 to 57 last year.
“If you don’t like someone, then you will perceive them negatively. For example, in the Financial Secrecy Index (FSI), our neighbour Singapore is among the top 10 countries involved in money laundering. We are among the lowest.
“The CPI should also look into these other scores because money laundering is connected with corrupt activities,” he said.
Published by the Tax Justice Network, the FSI is a ranking of jurisdictions by their level of financial secrecy, which facilitates tax abuse, money laundering, and undermines human rights.
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