KUCHING: All ministries and agencies in Sarawak are demonstrating a serious commitment to ensuring strong corporate governance to fight against corruption and push the integrity agenda forward.
Tourism, Creative Industry and Performing Arts Minister Datuk Seri Abdul Karim Rahman Hamzah said the Sarawak Tourism Board’s (STB) core values, E.P.I.C which stands for Excellence, Professionalism, Integrity and Caring, must therefore align with the state’s agenda to develop trust among co-workers and stakeholders.
“I believe that having an open and honest working culture with integrity as the foundation is the key to the success of our organisation.
“We are not here for personal gain or self-interest but to develop the tourism industry and to do things transparently.
“Issues that involve corruption and negative perception need to be rectified to shine a better light on all civil servants”, Karim said in his speech during STB Integrity Day on Monday (Jan 24).
The five-year STB Organisational Anti-Corruption Plan (OACP) and Corruption Risk Management is designed to serve as an effective management tool to ensure the work culture in STB embraces integrity as part and parcel of its culture.
Besides, it is to help STB prevent and eliminate corruption more effectively, identifying its structural weaknesses and risk factors,at the same time help embed corruption-prevention within a well-established governance framework in STB.
“We must maintain high standards and keep working on them to be world class in delivering our services.
“I know that the temptations will always be there, but we are here to work together in practicing good governance,” he added.
Karim reiterated that a clean business environment in the industry will help develop the country’s economy and paint a better future, especially the tourism industry which contributes a lot to the state’s economic growth.
He stated this was crucial for the state in order to attract investors to have joint ventures and form strategic partnerships in shaping the Sarawak tourism industry.
“We encourage all staff to share or voice out any suggestions that can help to improve our integrity practices in the workplace.
“I hope this event will be beneficial to us in fighting our common enemy, which is corruption.
“We must correct the negative perception among the public towards civil servants and instill confidence among them that we act in integrity, and always in the nation’s interest.”
