KUALA LUMPUR: TWENTY-EIGHT Certified Integrity Officers (CeIOs) with the Malay-sian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) will be reinstated in ministries and departments to intensify efforts to weed out graft and abuse of power in the public sector.
These officers, who were trained to implement anti-corruption measures and practise good governance, are expected to report for duty at their respective ministries and departments beginning today.
Earlier this year, 47 MACC CeIOs were removed from ministries and departments they were overseeing and replaced by Administrative and Diplomatic Service (PTD) officers.
Their removal, which came as a shock to many, was said to be in line with the government’s decision to set up the National Integrity and Good Governance Department (JITN).
Sources, however, told the New Straits Times that these highly-trained investigators would be sent back to government agencies to continue with efforts to smoke out corruption and abuse of power in the public service.
Their main task will centre around detecting and verifying complaints of crimes and violation of code of conduct, and lodging reports with enforcement agencies.
“Twenty Grade 44 officers will be stationed in ministries, while eight more will be placed in selected departments.
“Discussions are ongoing about the placement of senior MACC CeIOs as heads of integrity units.
“Their cases are a bit more complicated as their job warrants have been changed to ‘Grade M54’, which means only PTD officers could fill the posts,” sources said.
NST was made to understand that the removal of MACC’s CeIOs had affected investigations into a number of graft and abuse of power cases in the government agencies.
“A lot of cases were disrupted... some secretaries-general of ministries asked MACC to continue helping, and they actually did.
“However, they could not detect if there are any new cases,” the sources said.
It is also understood that the removal of MACC investigators had hampered enforcement efforts.
This was attributed to the new integrity officers’ lack of experience and enforcement power.
“The new integrity officers do not focus on verifying complaints lodged with their departments because they don’t have the experience and power to do that.
“In fact, the heads of department are not well-versed on matters relating to investigations,” the sources said.
Meanwhile, MACC Deputy Chief Commissioner (operations) Datuk Azam Baki, who confirmed the reinstatement of officers, said their presence would help combat menaces in the public sector effectively.
“I am confident that with the help of these officers, issues related to integrity in ministries and departments would be handled swiftly... and we can achieve our objective to reduce corruption and abuse of power.
“I also hope that heads of department, secretaries-general and directors-general will make use of these officers’ vast experience to tackle issues related to integrity and good governance,” he said, adding that these officers would act as advisers to government agencies.
Azam hoped that the government would consider transforming the Grade 54 position, which could be filled only by a PTD officer, into a more universal position.
“At the moment, we can only send Grade 44 officers. We can’t send senior officers to fill positions as heads of integrity units since the job warrants have been changed to M54, which is opened to only PTD officers.
“We hope the government would consider allowing MACC officers and other officers who are competent to fill the positions.”
The NST in January reported that CeIOs, during their five-year service, had taken down 4,000 complaints and pursued to the end 1,600 of them, including those classified as “misconduct”.
PTD officers, however, “detected and verified” only 683 cases of misconduct in the same period.
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