“Let’s work together to remove corruption and promote prosperity”
Corruption Prevention Units and Public Feedback Programme launched in Myanmar

The Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) of Myanmar, established on 25 February 2014 after the Anti-Corruption Law enacted in 2013, strives to build an effective and strong foundation of corruption prevention to reduce petty corruption. According to the Law, ACC undertakes to create a clean government, ensure good governance, and fight corruption through prevention, investigation, and raising public awareness. Some achievements were made after more than 7 years of campaigns against corruption.

With the missions to (a) investigate and identify bribery and corruption issues in respective departments and (b) prevent and solve corruption, Corruption Prevention Units (CPU) were established in 14 ministries or organizations in March 2019 as a pilot project to improve the services provided by government institutions. Now, 37 ministries or organizations have established the units.

As an initiative under the action plan of CPU, a Public Feedback Programme (PFP) was developed, with the technical assistance of the World Bank, to receive citizens’ feedbacks on public services via short message service (SMS). PEP has been piloted in CPUs in 10 ministries or organizations since October 2019. Based on the pilot experience, further amendments and improvements were made in 2020 and the web portal of PFP was changed from Cloud server to local server to comply with legislative requirement.

PEP system was further tested and successfully launched with the support and cooperation of the Department of Communications and telecommunication operators. Since 2021, PEP has been used in 13 ministries or organizations.

The PFP system consists of the following 3 processes:

• Step 1: The Data Entry Office (DEO) teams from respective departmental branch offices to enter the phone numbers of citizens who receive public services into the system.
• Step 2: CPU teams to send SMS to the phone numbers of citizens through the system by using the short code number “1111”, and collect their feedbacks on the services, needs and suggestions. Unresolved issues will be forwarded to the related Ministry for further follow-up.
• Step 3: The Ministry follows up with unresolved matters and public suggestions.

Corruption not only hinders provision of quality services, but also undermines public trust in government departments. Therefore, the PFP system aims to redress the weaknesses of respective departments, to reduce petty corruption, to build trust between the government and the public, and to support the Corruption Risk Assessment process in the respective law, rules, and regulations. Corruption prevention can also help avert the damage to government’s reputation and public trust as well as save the need for legal proceedings.

PFP enables the public to share and review their experiences on public services. Government departments can only implement necessary reforms if accurate feedbacks from the public are collected. Prompt detection of bribery through PFP will also enhance trust between the government and the public. Therefore, the public is encouraged to participate in the process of corruption prevention by replying to the questions asked through SMS.

Let’s work together to remove corruption and promote prosperity.

Source: Anti-Corruption Commission, Myanmar