KUCHING, Sept 4): Democratic Action Party parliamentarian leader Lim Kit Siang has concurred with Perikatan Nasional chairman Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin that there is no need to debate PAS president Abdul Hadi Awang’s "root of corruption” remarks.

The Iskandar Puteri MP said Hadi’s remarks were irrational, extremist, and without any theoretical, theological or factual basis.

"Islam is one of the great religions of the world and teaches human beings to be good, but Hadi has no problem in condoning corruption and working with (former prime minister Datuk Seri) Najib Razak, one of the masterminds of the mega 1MDB financial scandal.

"Islam does not differentiate among the races but Hadi keeps spouting irrational, extremist and racist views,” he said in a statement today.

According to Lim, there were some 1.8 billion Muslims in the world as of 2015, about 24 per cent of the global population, and the majority or 62 per cent of Muslims globally live in the Asia-Pacific region like Indonesia, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Iran and Turkey.

He said only about 20 per cent of the world’s Muslims live in Middle East-North Africa region where the religion originated in the seventh century.

"Corruption is not a racial or nationality problem but Hadi continues to identify corruption with race or nationality. There is not a single Muslim-majority among the top 10 countries regarded as least corrupt, while three Muslim-majority countries are among 10 countries regarded as the most corrupt in the world.”

He said when the Transparency International (TI) started its annual Corruption Perception Index (CPI) in 1995, Malaysia was way ahead of India, China and Indonesia, which were ranked No.35 with 2.78 points (India), No.40 with 2.16 points (China) and No.41 with 1.94 points (Indonesia), out of 41 countries surveyed.

He added that Malaysia was, in 1995, ranked No.23 and scored 5.28 out of 10 points.

"After 27 years, in the TI CPI 2021, Malaysia is ranked No.62 out of 180 nations with a score of 48 out of 100 points as compared to China which is ranked No.66 with a score of 45 points, India ranked No.85 with a score of 40 points while Indonesia ranked No.96 with a score of 38 points,” he pointed out.

Lim said China, India and Indonesia had made great strides in fighting corruption, particularly Indonesia which had improved its score from 1.94 points out of 10 to 38 points out of 100.

He regretted that Malaysia was among the few countries which had regressed to the extent that a former prime minister had just been jailed for a mega financial scandal.

He claimed that such scandal would have been covered up if there had not been a change of government in the 2018 general elections.

"Instead of spearheading the battle against worsening corruption in Malaysia, Hadi has come out with a perverted version to give racial twist to the problem of corruption in Malaysia — something the voters of Malaysia must not forget when they go to the polls in the 15th General Election (GE15), whether this year or next year.

"Hadi has only confirmed that GE15 will, among others things, be a contest between the Rule of Law versus corruption,” he said. — Borneo Post