KUALA LUMPUR, February 17 – The Institute of Democracy and Economic Affairs (IDEAS) agrees with the view of the former Prime Minister, Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad that the existence of corrupt practices in the supply chain of goods and services in Malaysia is one of the main contributing factors to the increase in the cost of living for the people. Its Chief Executive Officer, Dr Tricia Yeoh, said the matter was proven through a paper by the Coalition for Business Integrity (CBI) which identified the process of supplying goods and services that have an element of corruption will cause an increase in costs.
He said that due to the increasing cost of business management, the impact had to be borne by the people as end users. According to him, the findings from the paper also reveal how corruption affects the cost of living for consumers, through the creation of upward pressure on the price of consumer goods and services. This collaborative research found how systemic corruption is not something that only affects the highest levels of society, but actually also has a negative impact on people’s daily lives through artificial inflation that increases the cost of living.
“With a focus on the construction, education and health care sectors, research conducted by IDEAS and the CBI also found that bribery is the most common form of corruption in the private and public sectors. However, there are also other forms of corruption including extortion, embezzlement, fraud, abuse of discretion and favoritism,” he told Sinar Harian on Sunday. Meanwhile, the Chief Executive Officer of the CBI, Mark Chay also agrees with Dr Mahathir and asserts that the various problems facing Malaysia are caused by a widespread lack of integrity in managing the country’s resources.
He said, corrupt practices and misuse of power have disrupted healthy competition, restricted the development of the private sector, caused barriers to the entry of foreign investors, affected the delivery of public services and resulted in inefficient government spending. He added that acts of corruption also contribute to higher levels of price inflation and suppress people’s incomes, thus encouraging more corruption which leads to a vicious cycle of oppression against the people.
“One of the reasons for the rising cost of living is due to corruption when the matter is closely related to the cost of doing business. This happens when business dealings are infused with the need to bribe, even this disgusting act of corruption is counted as a cost of business management. All of that is then returned and distributed to the community or known as the trickle-down effect,” he said.
At a press conference after attending the Bumiputera Entrepreneurs Forum, ‘Building Bumiputera Economic Resilience And Future Challenges’ at the Perdana Leadership Foundation, Putrajaya on Saturday, Dr Mahathir emphasized that the cost of living in Malaysia has increased due to rampant corruption. According to Dr Mahathir, when every business is infused with an element of corruption, it causes the price of goods and services to become more expensive.
