Abolish the 'KIV system': Salleh
Published on: Thursday, December 11, 2014
KOTA KINABALU: KIV trays in government offices give an impression that officers are incompetent or, even worse, susceptible to corruption.State Assembly Speaker Datuk Seri Salleh Tun Said Keruak (pic) said having the 'KIV system' in place had sparked off numerous complaints of bribery of officers in order to speed up certain applications by the public."KIV stands for Keep In View so you keep the files in front of you for months on end, keeping it in your view. If it is no, then say no. If yes, then proceed to the next step in the procedure.
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"Why would you want to keep it in your tray under KIV? If one officer did it, and the next officers in the chain did the same, how long do you expect people to wait?" he said after delivering his presentation at the State Anti-Corruption Conference, here, Wednesday.During the conference, a participant alleged that there have been many instances of government officers 'collecting fees' in order to see the applications through.Salleh added that if the KIV system is abolished, he believed government departments and agencies will be able to speed up their delivery system as the decision-making process will be faster due to lesser bureaucracy.He said an effective and efficient system will help the Government win over the confidence of the public.
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"For instance, with regards to land application, if the land cannot be applied, why should you register? If it cannot be approved, then there is no need to register them as LA (Land Application)."Otherwise, you're giving false hopes to the applicants. If the land is within forest reserves, you give a LA, that is wrong because forest reserves lands cannot be applied for.
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"But sometimes it happened where there are LAs in forest reserves but definitely you cannot approve," he said.He gave another example, stating some people had reported alleged bribery case to the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) but were made to wait for the response only to be told weeks later that the case had been thrown out."People have the perception that MACC is not doing its job. However, they might have been barking up the wrong tree. A fake IC case was reported to the MACC when it should have been reported to the National Registration Department (NRD)."If there is no KIV, then there would not be this problem because the officers can straight away say, this does not fall under our jurisdiction and tell the complainant to direct his report to the NRD."Instead, the complainant was left hanging, waiting for the call only to be told two weeks later that the case had been NFA (No Further Action)," he said.Salleh also suggested that another way to minimise opportunities for corruption is by making use of online services when applying for any government-related approvals.For example, he said, billboard applications can be rejected or approved online without the applicants having to go see certain officers for approval."If the application adheres to all the policies and rules and regulations, then their applications can be approved. This will also cut down bureaucracy at the same time," he said.Salleh added that there were constant accusations about some government officers who seem to be living beyond their means and the public loves to jump to conclusion by accusing the person as corrupt even though some of them are shrewd when it comes to financial management.Nevertheless, he said, corruption is like cancer that needs immediate and drastic medication even if such treatment will result in the loss of a patient's much-loved organ.Stay up-to-date by following Daily Express’s Telegram channel.
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