KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysian corporate executives said bribery and corruption were worsening in the graft-plagued country, according to a survey, despite government pledges to tackle graft.
Eighty per cent of respondents said they felt bribery and corruption had increased between 2010 and 2012, according to the government-backed survey conducted by professional services firm KPMG and released on Monday.
The perception that bribery and corruption were a “major problem for businesses in Malaysia” was shared by 90 percent of those polled, the survey said. “A whopping 71 per cent of respondents also believed that bribery and corruption is an inevitable cost of doing business, whilst 64 percent believed that business can’t be done in Malaysia without paying bribes,” it added.
KPMG said it received responses from 10 per cent of companies on the Malaysian stock exchange, which has about 900 listed firms.
Corruption — ranging from small bribes solicited by police to refrain from issuing traffic tickets to multi-million dollar contracts awarded without a transparent tender process -— is routine in Southeast Asia’s third-largest economy.—AFP
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