Malaysia better than 76% of Countries, says PM

Malaysia is better than 76% of the countries in the list surveyed for the Transparency International Corruption Perception Index. Read here http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2008/5/14/nation/20080514162319&sec=nation

This reminds me of one interview with the late Tan Sri Harun Mahmud Hashim, the country’s first ACA Director that I read in the newspaper many years ago. During the interview, Tan Sri Harun was asked to comment on Malaysia’s (achievement) placing in term of corruption rate (which was improving than the previous year) (forgive me. I do not remember the exact placing) as opposed to other countries with higher corruption rate than Malaysia.

He answered the question by asking another question i.e. why do we compare our country’s achievement with the country below us. Why don’t we compare our country’s achievement with the country which had the least corruption rate?

What a beautiful answer!!! Tan Sri was absolutely right in his answer. We will only improve when we associate ourselves with the best. We will be complacent if we associate ourselves with those lower than us. So, I think for Pak Lah, instead of saying that we are better than 76% of countries, he should have said that we are behind 24% of countries.

"Winners Associate Themselves with Winners"