Premier Jiang Yi-huah urged government agencies to step up their anti-corruption efforts while he presided over a meeting of the Central Integrity Committee held today.
"The success or failure of the fight against corruption hinges on agency leaders' determination. Instead of favoring colleagues and covering up their faults, government heads should turn those staffers found to have committed a breach of integrity over to anti-corruption agencies for further investigation. They should also take reference from individual corruption cases to conduct self-examination of their agencies' practices and put forward new precautionary measures," he said.
After hearing the Ministry of Justice's (MOJ) latest report on the integrity of government agencies, Premier Jiang urged the general public to have more confidence in the government's determination to eradicate misbehavior. "Since President Ma Ying-jeou took office in 2008, the rate of criminal corruption cases has dwindled while the conviction rate has risen, indicating that the government's integrity has significantly improved," he said.
Recently Transparency International released its Global Corruption Barometer 2013, which claimed that 36 percent of Taiwanese respondents said that over the previous 12 months they had bribed a government official, a figure which shocked Taiwanese citizens and greatly diverged from previous surveys. Premier Jiang instructed the MOJ to follow up on this development by communicating with Transparency International to clarify the truth of the matter and explain it to the public in a timely manner.
Premier Jiang encouraged civil service ethics office staffers to ensure government heads have a firm grasp of potential threats to integrity and take preventive measures. He also reminded the MOJ's prosecutors' offices, Investigation Bureau and Agency Against Corruption to observe procedural justice and refrain from impinging on human rights while carrying out anti-corruption missions.
In response to a report by the Research, Development and Evaluation Commission on services integration, Jiang said ensuring a clean and efficient government is one of the administration's most important tasks and improving administrative efficiency is the key to national competitiveness. The government is focused on being "customer-oriented" and streamlining service procedures by forming different cross-agency working circles rather than seeing each department as a separate implementation unit, he said.
Jiang directed agencies to assess which of their tasks are directed toward citizens and look to collaborate with other agencies to form additional integrated working circles so as to provide more convenient and efficient services to citizens.
Finally, the Ministry of Economic Affairs reported on improving the management of private businesses in which the government holds stakes. The premier responded that while these enterprises are distinct from state-run businesses and are less subject to close public scrutiny, agencies must shoulder the responsibility for overseeing them. This includes carefully reviewing their candidates for positions such as director and supervisor as well as examining the performance and integrity of those serving such roles and immediately replacing unsuitable ones.
The premier also said that a taskforce has been established to assess how many state-run businesses should be kept. Its preliminary conclusions will be communicated to the public.