In a meeting with selected media on Thursday, Azam said that he would accept the survey if “it is based on facts”, adding that it should be evidence-based instead of perception.
The annual CPI ranks countries by their perceived levels of public sector corruption, with Azam pointing out that the survey also rates aspects such as human rights, which he said were not related to corruption.
Azmi Hassan, a senior fellow at the Nusantara Academy for Strategic Research, said that he “tends to agree with Azam” as the index is based on perception and the majority of respondents were based overseas.
He added that the 1MDB issue may have “clouded” the survey respondents’ perception of the true level of corruption in the country.
“Compared with other countries, corruption in Malaysia is not as bad,” Azmi said.
“Let me use the simple analogy of inflation. If you ask the man on the street, they have very negative views of it and say they face hardship. But if you look at data by the statistics department, it paints a different picture,” he said.
“Perception is always different and based on the colour of your mind. I think that maybe MACC needs to find a way to gauge corruption in Malaysia based on evidence.
“One example I would like to use is the US State Department’s annual human trafficking report which saw Malaysia remain in Tier 3, the lowest tier, this year. It’s hard to refute that as it is based on evidence.”
Released on Wednesday, the report said the Malaysian government has continued to conflate human trafficking and migrant-smuggling crimes, which impeded law enforcement and victim identification efforts.
Noting that anti-trafficking investigations have declined over the past year, the report also said the government did not prosecute or convict its officials who were allegedly complicit in trafficking crimes.
In the CPI rankings for 2021 which was released in January, Malaysia dropped five places to 62, out of 100.
It was the lowest since the methodology was revised in 2012. In 2020, Malaysia ranked 57, a slight decrease from 51 in 2019.
Subang MP Wong Chen, however, shot down Azam’s view of the CPI, which he said is “accepted around the world”.
“Azam’s criticism is unfounded. I beg him to show to us which corruption index out there is based on actual evidence rather than perceived corruption,” he said.
“The only way to look at corruption is to ask people how they feel about the issue. Even if a thousand people are charged for corruption, who knows how many others out there are actually involved in it?”