By Nigel Edgar
KUCHING, Dec 3: Chief Minister Datuk Patinggi Abang Johari Tun Openg wants to end kleptocracy in the state as it causes projects to be delayed or fail entirely.
He said he had announced recently that each state ministry and department would have a trained Integrity Officer by the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) to ensure that no corrupt practices and abuse of power through cronyism would happen in the state civil service.
“To strengthen our commitment towards ensuring a clean government I have indicated that we will be putting trained Integrity Officers in ministries and departments to ensure that the delivery of services and project are carried out in a transparent manner.
“We shall require the assistance of MACC to train our officers and the Sarawak Director of MACC has shown willingness to help us to produce Integrity Officers,” he told thousands of civil servants attending the State Civil Service Excellence Night 2018 at the Borneo Convention Centre Kuching (BCCK) on Sunday.
Abang Johari said this should end lobbying for government projects which sometimes causes project implementation delays and failed projects because the best people are not engaged to carry out the projects.
With the exception of projects requiring special expertise, all government projects will be implemented based on open tender, he stressed.
“While we are very enthusiastic about providing the best for our people in terms of project implementation, we acknowledge the importance of integrity and transparency in the civil service. Corruption, abuse of power and cronyism in government administration will destroy the civil service and the economy.
“The first few things I did when I took over as Chief Minister was to take a pledge of integrity with all the Cabinet Ministers and we have not forgotten what we have pledged to the discerning ‘rakyat’,” — DayakDaily
