KUALA LUMPUR : Malaysia must
overcome corruption and carry out more market-oriented reforms if it is to move
up from being a middle-income economy, CIMB Group chief Datuk Seri Nazir Razak
and younger brother to the prime minister has told Financial Times (FT).
The youngest son of the
country's second prime minister, Tun Razak Hussein, also told the FT that his
eldest brother had “a hell of a task” because “worldwide, no one has really
been able to reform from incumbency”.
Nazir's elder brother and
the country's sixth PM, Datuk Seri Najib Razak, has been sprearheading a slew
of governmental, economic and social reforms to transform the country, but
Malaysia's top banker seemed to suggest that it was not enough in an interview
published in the international business paper today.
“(Corruption) remains a
problem and it is something that needs to be combated,” he told FT.
Nazir told the paper that
Malaysia could consider granting an amnesty for those involved in minor
corruption, as has been done in Hong Kong and other countries, an idea that the
Najib administration has resisted.
“You could argue that when
you do that, you will get a lot less resistance from the vested interests,
which is always the problem; then say, the past is the past and we all start
from scratch. I still believe that’s what is needed,” Nazir was quoted as
saying.
He highlighted that there
was “still a need to strengthen market forces in general and that is about
rolling back government in business, both in terms of bureaucracies but also in
terms of its direct involvement.”
Nazir told the paper
Putrajaya must push reforms that give more free rein to market forces and roll
back government ownership of business through privatisations, such as the
public listing of Malaysian palm oil giant Felda Global Ventures Holdings last
week, which would also draw in major world business players like Axiata.
The ruling Barisan Nasional
(BN) government, which Najib heads, has repeatedly come under fire for its
less-than-transparent and lavish spending on government procurement projects in
areas ranging from agriculture to defence, resulting in scandals such as the
RM250 million National Feedlot Centre that failed to cut the country's beef
imports and the multibillion ringgit spent on buying submarines and naval
patrol boats.
Malaysia’s score in
Transparency International’s corruption perception index has slipping for the
fourth year running; on a 10-point scale, where 10 represents no corruption,
Malaysia dropped from 5.1 in 2008 to 4.5 in 2009, 4.4 in 2010 and 4.3 in 2011.
The country’s ranking also
fell to 60 out of 183 countries — between Saudi Arabia and Cuba — from 56 out
of 178 last year.
Malaysia remained the
third-least corrupt nation in Asean after Singapore (9.2) and Brunei (5.2),
with Thailand (3.4) and Indonesia (3.0) following in fourth and fifth places
respectively.
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