Prime Minister Najib Razak should bring a Freedom of Information bill to Parliament to stop Malaysia’s slide into the abyss of corruption.
This is after our rankings took a nosedive by 7 spots to 62 in Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index 2017. 180 countries were included in the survey.
The use of the Official Secrets Act has prevented Parliamentarians, journalists, civil society and even the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission from having access to dig deeper into Malaysia’s corruption cases.
Journalists and MPs have faced a dead end from reporting or speaking about graft cases as the government’s priority is to attack whistleblowers instead of fighting corrupt warlords in the country.
Malaysia is the worst performing country in Southeast Asia in the last 5 years as our neighbours Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam and Myanmar have improved on their total score.
Even Cambodia has maintained it’s total points.
Malaysia, however, has been on a slippery slope since 2014 and now find ourselves behind even Cuba in the corruption report.
The attack on press freedom and reduction of space for civil society has been one of the main causes for Malaysia’s slide.
This got worse after opposition MP Rafizi Ramli was sentenced to a 30-month jail term for exposing alleged corrupt practices linked to the then chairperson of the National Feedlot Corporation, Shahrizat Abdul Jalil.
That ruling will have a chilling effect on future cases and could prevent other whistleblowers from speaking without fear.
We should be encouraging a check and balance system involving all Malaysians. And the Official Secrets Act has been the most used weapon by the government to prevent this.
To halt Malaysia from slipping further into the Hall of Fame of corruption, we need a Freedom of Information Act.
I will be tabling a motion calling for the urgent implementation of a Freedom of Information Act in the upcoming Parliament session.