‘Islamic nations rank high in corruption’

KUALA LUMPUR: Islamic nations are ranked as among the world’s most-corrupt and the fight to tackle the scourge could be tough due to poverty and poor governance, Malaysia’s prime minister said on Monday.

Taking his anti-corruption message to the rest of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) nations, Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, who chairs the group, said there were no quick fixes to completely eradicate the problem.

“I am deeply saddened to note that Muslim countries, as a group, do not rate very highly when it comes to perceptions of corruption,” he said at the opening of the group’s first forum on graft.

“I believe that many of the development challenges that the Muslim Ummah (community) faces have their roots in problems of poverty, poor governance and limited education opportunities,” he said. Citing Transparency International’s 2005 report, he said the Muslim country with the best record could only rank 29th out of 158 countries surveyed.
“More than half of the bottom ten places were occupied by Muslim countries,” he said. Chad was ranked as the most corrupt.

“The current condition that Muslim countries find themselves is deeply alarming and distressing,” he said in a speech.

The 57-member OIC comprises 1.8 billion people, ranging from wealthy Saudi Arabia and Kuwait to poor African states such as Chad and Sudan. Transparency International said the perception that Muslim nations were among the most corrupt had nothing to do with Islam.

“It’s more to do with ... the income level,” David Nussbaum, chief executive of the Berlin-based group, told Reuters. “Some of the countries right at the bottom of the list are very poor.” Abdullah, who came to office in late 2003, convincingly won elections in 2004 after campaigning to clean up corruption and cronyism.

He has charged a minister for land with corruption and dropped another minister from cabinet and his party for money politics, but critics say he could do more.