KUALA LUMPUR: The National Centre for Governance, Integrity and Anti-Corruption (GIACC) hopes the Ombudsman Bill, to ensure more effective management of public complaints could be tabled in Parliament, latest by the end of this year.
Its deputy director-general, Datuk Dr Anis Yusal Yusoff (pix) said the agency and the Public Complaints Bureau (BPA) are currently preparing the framework of the bill to be brought to the Cabinet.
“We we are working to get this thing tabled in Parliament by the end of this year, that is our hope,“ he said after appearing as guest in the Ruang Bicara programme on Bernama News Channel (BNC) here last night.
Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad on Sept 21 last year reportedly said the Ombudsman Act would be formulated to change the function of the BPA to the Ombudsman Malaysia to ensure the management of public complaints in the country was more effective.
Anis Yusal said the establishment of the independent body would be able to create a safe and secure ecosystem for people to lodge complaints with government agencies.
Elaborating he said Ombudsman Malaysia would serve as a ‘second tier’, as the public would be able to lodge their complaints to the body if complaints through the first tier of government agencies were fruitless.
“The complainant can lodge a complaint with Ombudsman Malaysia which will then investigate why the relevant government agency had not taken appropriate action,“ he said. — Bernama
