KUALA LUMPUR - Malaysia's corruption perception index remains unchanged from last year at 5.1.

While the score remained the same, the country had, however, slid from 43rd to 47th place in the ranking of 180 countries.

President of Transparency International Malaysia Tan Sri Ramon Navaratnam said yesterday that this development was disconcerting.

Malaysia's CP index has fluctuated between 4.9 in 2002 and 5.1 in 2008.

"What the latest findings show is that what the government has done so far to eradicate corruption has failed to make an impact," Navaratnam told a press conference during which he released the results of the Transparency International's survey on corruption.

"People don't believe any of these changes are real or meaningful."

He said fighting corruption in the public sector required strong political will.

"A culture of intolerance for corruption needs also to be instilled into the culture of the civil service and political leaders must lead by example and walk the talk," he said.

"However, it cannot be a government effort alone.

"In order for corruption to be eradicated, the people themselves must move to put a stop to it.

The Transparency International CPI measures the perceived levels of public-sector corruption in a given country. It is a composite index, drawing on different expert and business surveys.

The 2008 CPI scores 180 countries, the same number as last year.

It rates them on a scale of zero (highly corrupt) to 10 (highly clean).

This year, Denmark, New Zealand and Sweden share the highest score at 9.3, followed by Singapore at 9.2.

The worst countries in the survey were Somalia (1.0), Iraq (1.3) and Haiti (1.4).

The countries that improved the most since last year were Albania, Cyprus, Georgia, Mauritius, Nigeria, Oman, Qatar, South Korea, Tonga as well as Turkey.

Bulgaria, Burundi, Maldives, Norway and the United Kingdom registered a fall in their scores. -- NST