PUTRAJAYA, Aug 23 — The government targets to form Integrity Units (IUs) in at least six ministries yearly,said Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Senator Datuk Paul Low Seng Kuan.

He said for now, the Youth and Sports Ministry, the Urban Wellbeing, Housing and Local Government Ministry and Works Ministry will set up the units to give added focus on integrity matters.

Last month, Paul had said the units were aimed at ensuring public servants were highly patriotic, had good work ethics and high moral values, besides to check criminal misconduct, indiscipline and upholding of organisational ethics by civil servants.

“The reason why we are doing it (integrity units) step by step is because we are doing from top to the bottom. Not just some aspect only. It is comprehensive.

“And very likely the next one we will try to do perhaps is with the Health Ministry and the minister will be involved himself. The reason why we are doing this is because we want to have ownership,” he told reporters here today.

Earlier, he had launched a Public Complaints Bureau (BPA) kiosk here.

Also present was PBA Director-General Datin Mahani Tan Abdullah.

Paul said the IUs will be headed by a chief integrity officer from the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission while the the assistant will be from the ministries.

To date almost 500 integrity officers had been trained to help each ministry implement anti-corruption measures and good governance, he added.

Meanwhile, he said the government was looking to prepare price guidelines on government procurement of public goods, as National Audit Department had reported some of the prices were far too high.

He said one of the government’s key initiative was to make procurement more open and transparent.

“If there are closed negotiations and close tenders, then the criteria must be very clear. So we are looking at ministry by ministry to make sure procurement is more transparent and we want to prevent any conflict of interest,” he added. – Bernama