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Saturday, November 5, 2011

What Happened To Our Moral Values? (Part 2)

Hi Everyone,

What does corruption and graft have in common? It happened to countries all around the world. It involves politicians! Politicians are meant serve the people, implement policies / laws that benefits all people and develop the country. Yet, we heard of governments officials being involved in corruption.


More common in Malaysia, there were a lot of baby dumping cases. Most likely this is due to under aged sex or unlawful marriages or just sexual immorality. They are then desperate enough to dump the baby instead of putting into adoption.



Corruption

Transparency International (TI) is the global civil society organisation leading the fight against corruption. Set up in 1993, TI played a lead role in improving the lives of millions in the world by building momentum for the anti corruption movement.1


We have heard of corruption cases happening in these parts of the world that include Somalia, Haiti, Indonesia, Thailand, Myanmar, Afghanistan, Sudan, Bangladesh and our own country, Malaysia. TI has been monitoring corruption through the Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) rankings, the latest being updated on 26th October 2010. The CPI ranks almost 200 countries by their perceived levels of corruption (0-10), as determined by expert assessments and opinion surveys.2 The higher the perceived levels are, the cleaner the country is.


Based on the latest CPI, Malaysia is ranked 56 out of 178 countries with a perception index of 4.4. Singapore, our neighbour is at the top of the list, sharing the honours with Denmark and New Zealand with an index of 9.3. Brunei is also better than us, having obtained the rank of 38 with the index of 5.5.3 In fact, I just did a Google Search with the keyword, corruption, Malaysia is found in the 7th, 8th, 9th and 11th search items. 4


Well, our country does have numerous corruption cases throughout all these years. We have the Port Klang Free Trade Zone (PKFZ) scandal a few years back. The trials are still running now.5,6,7


With the Audtior-General's 2010 Report, it is found that the Marine Park's department has paid RM11,800 for RM3,400 laptop and a printer. There might be some things going on here as well. The department did not check the retail price of these items before agreeing.8


Corruption does not only present in Malaysia, but also in other countries as well especially African countries. According to the latest Corruption Perception Index 20119, Somalia, Sudan and Haiti are ranked 182th (the lowest), 177th and 175th respectively. Somalia is the most corrupt country of all. Please also check out the 10 most corrupt countries in the world as reported by Business Insider10. The rankings here are based on the CPI.


The most corrupt country for the 5th year running, Somalia's leaders are still the most corrupt. They have set up refugee camps in order to divert food donations that they will then steal and sell them on the black market. There is also a religious group that bans aid agencies such as UNICEF and WHO to provide supply to almost 160,000 malnourished children.11 I do not know why on earth do they want to do this. All the children are precious people. 


Also ranked the same with Somalia is the country of North Korea. We can see North Koreans fleeing into Korea and China.12 The corruption in North Korea includes nepotism and bribery being accepted by government officials. Some of the companies in North Korea are owned by the president's relatives13.


May we continue to keep praying for all of these countries, including those not mentioned here so that there will be clean governments in the world. Government leaders should seek to implement policies that benefits the people and meet the needs of people impartially.


There are a lot of issues on corruption. I may want to split this into two or three posts depending on my content. As for now, it covers three countries. These series on moral issues would be quite long. Therefore, I would split these into several blog posts instead. The next one will be on rape or sexual immorality.


Cheers,


Rogerkoo


1 Transparency International: About Us
Accessed: 26th October 2011



2 Transparency International: Policy Research: Survey Indices - CPI
3 Transparency International: Corruption Perceptions Index 2010 Results
Accessed: 26th October 2011



4 Google Search: Corruption
5 Timeline: The PKFZ scandal
Accessed: 26th October 2011


6 Lessons from PKFZ
http://thestar.com.my/columnists/story.asp?file=/2009/9/4/columnists/questiontime/4648239&sec=questiontime
Accessed: 26th October 2011


7 No complaint of Dr Ling lying in PKFZ project, says former minister
http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2011/10/14/nation/20111014172809&sec=nation
Accessed: 26th October 2011


8 Dept paid RM11,800 for RM3,400 laptop and printer
http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2011/10/25/nation/9766843&sec=nation
Accessed: 26th October 2011


9 Transparency International: Corruption Perceptions Index 2011 Results
Accessed: 10th December 2011

10 The 10 Most Corrupt Countries In The World

11 Al-Shabaab bans aid agencies in Somalia and raids offices

12 Somalia Tops Most Corrupt Countries List For Fifth Year
Accessed: 10th December 2011



13 8th IACC: Corruption in South and North Korea
Accessed: 10th December 2011

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