TRANSPARENCY ISSUES IN MALAYSIAN

PUBLIC SECTOR
 TRANSPARENCY
 Transparency is used as a means of holding
public officials accountable and fighting
corruption. When a government's meetings are
open to the press and the public, its budgets
may be reviewed by anyone, and its laws and
decisions are open to discussion, it is seen
as transparent.
Transparency—the release of information about institutions
that is relevant for evaluating those institutions—is an issue of
major concern for the contemporary social sciences. In the
international relations field, transparency has been
acknowledged for its potential to contribute to regime
effectiveness (Mitchell, 1998), to reduce the risks of conflicts
and war (Schultz, 1998, Fearon, 1995) and for constituting a
potential substitute or compensation for the poor prospects of
democratic accountability of international organizations
(Keohane and Nye, 2003).
 INTEGRITY
 Integrity is defined as a quality of excellence that manifested in a holistic and integral
manner in individual and organisations. It is based on ethics and noble values and their
concrete manifestation in daily lives (IIM, 2010).

 Armstrong (2005) emphasized that integrity provides the basis for transparency and
accountability

 The term integrity originated from the Latin term integer which means wholeness and
completeness. Integrity is the consistency of an acting entity’s words and actions (Palanski
& Yammarino, 2007). Trevinyo-Rodriguez (2007) gave the definition of integrity as the
bridge between character (personal psychology) and conduct or behaviour (ethics). It can
be concluded that integrity consists of actor’s word (character) and action (conduct) that
are parallel. Other scholars defined integrity as the quality of acting in accordance with
generally accepted moral values and norms to further public interest (Six & Hubert, 2008).
Table of ‘Pillars of Integrity’ adopted from
Aulich (2011).
1. Ethical principle as a basic guideline.
2. Clear laws, rules, and standards that are openly enunciated
3. Education about the rules and principles for public servants and elected
officials.
4. Advice mechanism on ethical issues as a proactive measure.
5. Protections of the whistle-blowers to ensure problems are identified.
6. Transparency in either interest, decisions, or processes.
7. Enforcement as the deterrent by agencies with adequate powers and
penalties.
8. Strong institutions of government including an independent judiciary, a
public service not politicised, and a parliament not totally subordinated to
executive government.
9. Leaderships that sets an example for all in both personal behaviour and day
to day running of government.
10. Political culture that support integrity, ethical behaviour and democratic
practices.
Issue of Transparency In Public Sectors

 After nearly three decades of Malaysian public policy

implementation of the policy of public reform by adopting the
approaches and techniques practiced in the private sector, various
changes can be seen, including modern and high-tech public service
delivery systems, robust internal control systems and flexible
administrative structures

 In addition to aimed at enhancing the effectiveness and efficiency of

the public administration system, the main objective of public
reform is to express the government's continued commitment to
strengthening good governance, accountability and transparency
but it has some issues happened in public sectors, that are :-
 Corruption
 Public sector corruption whether real or imagined has considerable
impacts on perceptions as to the credibility, dependability, integrity,
legitimacy and trustworthiness of government, its administrative
machinery and the quality of governance of a country.

 As example public sector corruption is constantly reported by the

mass media, reports on the siphoning off of 60% (RM1.98 billion) of
the RM3.3 billion of approved allocation by the Federal Government
for water projects by top departmental officials in Sabah from 2010
until 2016 has left the public reeling as to the extent, scale and
audacity with which public offices have been used for personal
benefits at the expense of the intended beneficiaries
 Abuse of Power
The abuse and misuse of power or authority in the
course of performing work can occur both with external
stakeholders and internally among staff. The effects can
be damaging to morale and to working-United Nations

As example Abuse of power or power harassment is

the misuse of authority to take actions in personal
interest that negatively impacts the company and its
employees. It's a relative form of workplace bullying
but specifically conducted by a superior.
 Integrity Issues
The culture of integrity is closely linked to ethical issues
and values.

The integrity of civil servants requires that they act

honestly and trustingly in their jurisdiction and duties,
transparent, without personal conflict, credibility,
accountability and adherence to rules and laws.

The importance of putting a culture of integrity at the

highest level is not new. It is a priority in our lives all the
time.
Trust or integrity is one of the virtues revealed by Prophet
Muhammad. The teaching of this trust is in keeping with
the command of GOD in the letter of An Nisa verse 58
which means "indeed, God has commanded you to give the
trust to those who are entitled to it and when you establish
the law among men you should justify it. Truly, Allah is the
One who taught you. Indeed, GOD is All-Hearing, All-
Seeing. “But sometimes in the event of a conflict of interest,
priority should be given to the well-being of the public.

It is therefore important for civil servants to exercise all

trusts to ensure that the people's trust in civil servants is
not compromised, which could interfere with the stability,
security and harmony of the country.
 Cont…
According to Petrick and Scherer (2003), the collapsed of Enron
was due to value, nature, and neglect of integrity. Neglect of
integrity can be costly. Petrick and Scherer (2003) have suggested
that managerial integrity may be improved by education on
integrity and accountability.

The avoidance of integrity value will indeed affect organizations

severely such as Enron, WorldCom, American International Group
(AIG), and Parmalat (Petrick and Shrerer, 2003). Malaysia is also
not spared in dealing with scandals involving huge national
companies such as Transmile, Perwaja Steel, Bumiputra Malaysia
Finance, and the Port Klang Free Zone (Pon and Othman, 2010).
 Accountability
Accountability has various meanings. Basically,
accountability refers to the need to give reasons for
certain actions (Parker & Gould, 1999) to those who
deserve clarification.

According to Hale (2008), transparency mechanism

can be achieved by strengthening the role of actors’
accountability.
 Bureaucracy / Red Tape

Bureaucratic tape is one of the many factors that

burden the people.

A slow decision was made because of the necessary

approvals from top management
 Recommendation
Introduce various initiatives to create awareness about the
importance of integrity as well as creating various
mechanisms to monitor the effectiveness of public
authorities.

Focused to improve service delivery to the public as well as

maintaining the interest of their stakeholders.

The civil servants are encouraged to participate in seminars

on integrity, forums, and dialogues organized by relevant
agencies and organizations
Make amendment some of policy, regulation to
reducing the bureaucracy / red tape

Eliminate some excessive bureaucracy by reducing

the hierarchy of the organizational structure. An
organization with a number of layers between top
management and front-line employees can slow
communications and the flow of information and
increase the number of "hands" an issue must pass
through before being resolved..
 Conclusion
The Malaysia Government has implemented numerous efforts in combating
corruption and promoting integrity among the society and particularly among the
civil servants. These efforts can be seen from the formation of institutions related to
integrity such as MII, MACC, EAIC, Public Account Committee (PAC), National
Audit Department, and Integrity Unit in each government department.

The effectiveness of transparency is further enhanced by administrative simplicity,

the high standards of auditing and accounting in the private sector as well as in the
public sector, and the presence of a critical and engaged of civil society, an
independent judiciary and independent, critical and investigative media (De Vries &
Sobis, 2016).

In order to achieve and improve the quality of government services the government
has taken several steps to address the concerns of civil servants. The government has
been conducting workshops to improve the quality of service especially frontline
workers.