AMID the scandal of Cameron Highlands and the revelations of the Auditor-Generals Report and the Sabah Royal Commission of Inquiry, these past few weeks came a sliver of sunshine of sorts: Malaysia had made a tiny improvement on Transparency Internationals Corruption Perception Index. From a rank of 53 out of 177 countries last year, we placed 50th least-corrupt out of 175 countries this year. Our score, too, had improved; from 49 and 50 in 2012 and 2013, respectively, we scored 52 this year. But, considering that a score of 100 denotes œvery clean and 0 denotes œhighly corrupt, there isnt really a silver lining in our score. To argue that we are only half way corrupt or that there are many other countries that are even worse than us, would be the same as a lazy schoolchild who, upon presenting his annual report card to his parents, argues that his mediocre scores are not bad because there are many students who did worse.
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