Ministries and commissions should establish short-, mid- and long-term goals for improving public integrity, create a sound anti-corruption mechanism, and work with anti-corruption and judicial units to build a cleaner image of government, Premier Sean Chen said today at a meeting of the Cabinet-level Central Integrity Committee (CIC).
Regarding the CIC's recommendation to assign more lawyers to public positions, Premier Chen asked the Directorate-General of Personnel Administration to study qualification and placement issues with the Examination Yuan. As for media reports of university professors misusing government grants, the National Science Council will work with the Ministry of Education and Ministry of Justice (MOJ) to analyze how the research subsidies are being used at universities, refine the definition of public servants under the Anti-Corruption Act, and make the expense verification mechanism more flexible.
Also at the meeting, the MOJ reported on the overall status of government integrity. Chen said the recent string of corruption cases involving high-ranking officials have given the public the wrong impression that the government's anti-corruption efforts have fallen short. He then pointed to the strong improvements shown in the MOJ's report: From 2008 to November 2012, the number of corruption cases per 10,000 indicted crimes fell from 26.7 to 21.6, and the corruption conviction rate increased from 68.6 percent to 75.9 percent. In addition, Taiwan's score of 61 in the Corruption Perceptions Index compiled by Transparency International puts it ahead of 80 percent of the countries in the survey. Chen directed the MOJ to better convey such achievements to the public.
Chen said in the last five years, ethics investigations have most commonly focused on public construction projects, procurement cases and police affairs. He asked ministers and heads of government agencies to pay closer heed to these statistics, and reminded the ethics departments under them to provide all needed support so as to foster greater integrity in public service and broaden the anti-corruption network. Since the media plays a key role in shaping the public's perception of government ethics, the premier also said it is critical for ministries and agencies to communicate their policies more clearly to the press.
The MOJ further reported on efforts to regulate lobbying activities at central and local government levels. Since lobbying registration and investigation guidelines were passed on September 7, 2012, the Agency Against Corruption (AAC) has organized 1,569 promotional events where 164,233 people participated. While this is an impressive push, said the premier, it seems some in elected office or in the public are still unclear on the difference between "serving constituents" and "lobbying officials." The AAC should devote more attention to clarifying this distinction, the premier said.
And since the guidelines were implemented on December 31, 2012, to date only 162 instances of lobbying have been registered (110 at central government agencies and 52 cases at local levels). The premier directed the AAC to help the heads of government agencies as well as their staff to understand proper handling procedures so that lobbying can be made more transparent and public trust restored in civil servants.
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications separately reported on improvement measures after the recent Taiwan Railways Administration procurement graft case. The premier stated the case should not be regarded as an isolated incident but more of a structural, long-standing problem. He also echoed the AAC director-general's words that government must not only curb corruption, but must aggressively fight against and prevent it from happening.