PUTRAJAYA, Oct 4 — The Finance Ministry has introduced two new awards that can net federal civil servants a maximum RM30,000 as reward for creativity, innovation and for exposing corruption or misappropriation of funds.

Its minister Lim Guan Eng told his staff at their monthly gathering today that the sum for the Creativity and Innovation Award as well as the Integrity and Personality Award will be determined by the Treasury secretary-general.

“This is an incentive for federal civil servants to come up with creative solutions to save cost or streamline their work processes and make it more efficient. The other award is to encourage a clean and anti-corruption administration.

“Anyone who lodges a report for misappropriation of funds or corruption to their secretary-general is eligible for the award.

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“The maximum sum they will receive is RM30,000 but the sum they will receive will be determined by the Treasury secretary-general,” he said.

On a similar note, any ministry, department or agency that manages to save money when implementing a project will have their savings returned to them to be used for other programmes, Lim added.

He stressed that the original allocation should not be mispurposed into other projects as they can only use the money upon completion of the original project.

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At the same time, the minister also pointed out to his staff that the World Trade Organisation has predicted that trade next year will dip to 1.2 per cent from 2.6 per cent due to the US-China trade war and that they must be prepared.

“World trade growth has dropped from 2.6 to 1.2 per cent. This is of course a challenge.  That’s why we have to be aware of these challenges and take necessary preemptive measures or have contingency when necessary to pre-empt any adverse impact on world trade growth,” said Lim.