KUALA LUMPUR: INTEGRITY units will be set up in all ministries, government departments and agencies to combat corruption in the public sector.
Chief Secretary to the Government Tan Sri Dr Ali Hamsa revealed to the New Sunday Times that a circular to direct the implementation of the units had been prepared and was in the final stages of processing before being enforced.
Once completed, it would allow for the establishment of integrity units in all ministerial and governmental departments at the federal and state levels.
The anti-corruption effort followed the implementation of a pilot project last year in which such integrity units were initiated in five enforcement agencies regarded as the most high risk.
They agencies were: Immigration, Road Transport and Customs departments; police and the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC).
However, it had been decided that the police and MACC would not be getting their integrity units for now; instead, they will keep their compliance entities.
"So far, the Immigration Department has set up its integrity unit. Once (the circular) is enforced, the set-up of these units will be implemented in phases, with priorities given to high-risk agencies," said Ali.
He added although the establishment of these integrity units had yet to be formally enforced, several governmental agencies had already integrated the integrity aspect into their management practices.
"Apart from loaning officers from MACC, there are also a few agencies with their own designated certified integrity officers (CeIO) to manage the integrity management aspect in their respective organisations.
"These officers have undertaken the CeIO course at the Malaysia Anti-Corruption Academy."
In December 2011, National Key Result Areas corruption monitoring and coordination division director Datuk Hisham Nordin had announced that MACC would be sending its officers to form integrity units in all government agencies, in a pilot initiative to achieve a cleaner, more transparent as well as corrupt-free government.
He had said that these officers would be the ears and eyes of the commission, and would report directly to his division as well as their respective heads of management.
In the latest survey by Transparency International Malaysia (TI-M) last week, it was found that among the 1,000 people it interviewed between September last year and March, only 31 per cent believed that the government's efforts in fighting bribery had been effective, a significant drop from the 49 per cent recorded in 2011.
Those who believed that the efforts had been neither effective nor ineffective grew from 27 per cent to 44 per cent.
Also, from the 1,000 people polled, three per cent admitted they had paid bribes, compared with 1.2 per cent in 2011.
TI-M president Datuk Akhbar Satar, however, pointed out that the number was still lower than the ones recorded in Indonesia (36 per cent), Thailand (18) and the Philippines (12).
The global average figure stands at 27 per cent.
NST ONLINE
No comments:
Post a Comment