Fighting graft from within

Chief commissioner Tan Sri Abu Kassim Mohamed said that MACC realised that for 46 years, the body he heads has been too focused on combating graft from the outside.

“Based on our studies of countries with the highest ranking in the Corruption Perception Index (CPI), we found that they have both an internal and external system,” said Abu Kassim at the Malaysia Anti-Corruption Academy (MACA) Friday.

Abu Kassim said that those countries studied had better preventive measures, awareness, communication and education.

“That’s why we proposed to the government that we need to have a monitoring system both from the outside and inside," he said.

The MACC’s training academy has trained 150 Certified Integrity Officers (CeIO), consisting of both MACC and other government officers. They plan to increase that number in the near future.

“This is part of the Governance and Integrity (G&I). Those ministries that we have identified are not most corrupt or anything like that but they are more exposed,”said Abu Kasism, adding that among them are the Home Ministry and Finance Ministry.

Currently, there already are several officers placed in the Education Ministry, the Road Transport Department, Customs, Immigration, Felda, Petronas and Prasarana.

He said the three main duties of these integrity officers are to detect abuse and corruption, preventing its occurrence and to increase awareness.

“They are not just liaison officers but they will conduct risk analysis of the ministry's activities. If there are criminal elements, they will let us know what is happening. Prior to this, many government departments had failed to understand these offences and many incidents had not been reported to the MACC.”

The integrity officers would also advice heads of department or the top senior management on the matter.

Abu Kassim also said that the officers will promote the Whistleblower Act.

“It will encourage reporting, when people see an independent entity they will be more confident to give information.”

Meanwhile the annual MACA Certified Integrity Officer (CeIO) programme this year concluded Friday with many describing the value of integrity and adherence to moral and ethical principles as priceless.

The participants this year consisted of anti-graft officers from the US, Germany, Singapore who had shared their experiences on integrity management in their respective countries.

The CelO programme aims to train government and private sector officers to combat corruption, misappropriation of funds and abuse of power.

In his speech while tabling the 2014 Budget, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak said, an Integrity Management Unit will be placed in every government Ministry.