Minister dismisses Mahathir claims that Malaysia is one of ‘top 10 most corrupt countries’

KUALA LUMPUR — Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s claim that Malaysia was among the “top 10 most corrupt countries” in the world is demonstrably false, said Mr Salleh Said Keruak.

Questioning how the former prime minister arrived at such a conclusion, the communications and multimedia minister said the claim was not supported by recent reports on the topic.

Mr Salleh said he was able to locate reports by CNBC, the New York Times, and UK’s The Independent on the most corrupt countries in the world, but none listed Malaysia.

He said the countries described as such were invariably Somalia, South Sudan, North Korea, Syria, Yemen, Sudan, Libya, Afghanistan, Guinea-Bissau and Venezuela.

“Even more interesting is the fact that ranker.com came out with the most corrupt countries list based on Transparency International’s report and Malaysia was not even in the top 100 list.

“So where did Mahathir get his facts from? Has someone been feeding him false news?” Mr Salleh wrote on his blog on Friday (April 21).

Mr Salleh’s ministry operates the Sebenarnya.my “fake news” checker under the auspices of the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission.

Dr Mahathir made the assertion that Malaysia was currently “one of the ten most corrupt country in the world”, but did not state which ranking he was referring to in a blog post titled “Respect Malaysia” on Thursday. THE MALAY MAIL ONLINE