Agency Against Corruption, Ministry of Justice held the “Achievement Observation Meeting and Awarding Ceremony of Tentative Integrity Awards” on 2:30 pm, 7^th of December, 2021 in National Central Library. While the ceremony was conducted by Minister Tsai Ching-Hsiang of Ministry of Justice, the 6 awarded agencies’ heads were also present in the ceremony to take the awards and share the honor. The 6 awarded agencies are Criminal Investigation Bureau of National Police Agency, Ministry of the Interior; The 4^th River Management Office of Water Resources Agency, Ministry of Economic Affairs; Kaohsiung City Motor Vehicles Office Directorate General of Highways, Ministry of Transportation and Communications; Urban and Rural Development Department of New Taipei City Government; Department of Civil Affairs of Taoyuan City Government and Water Resources Bureau of Tainan City Government.

Minister Tsai pointed out that the mechanism of Tentative Integrity Awards was established since 2019 and although facing the challenge of Covid-19 this year, the 17 candidate agencies still showed their determination and actions pursuing the goal of establishing a clean, competent and transparent government. Each awarded agency had its own highlight performance in the area, for example, Criminal Investigation Bureau of National Police Agency, Ministry of the Interior improved administrative procedures and simplified paperwork to issue just a single form to citizens filing a complaint or a criminal report. Others such as the 4^th River Management Office of Water Resources Agency, Ministry of Economic Affairs established the Gravelling Integrity Platform; Kaohsiung City Motor Vehicles Office Directorate General of Highways, Ministry of Transportation and Communications introduced external supervision to prevent violations on examination and inspection processes; Urban and Rural Development Department of New Taipei City Government adopted the first ever “Simplified Urban Renewal” standard operations procedure in the country; Department of Civil Affairs of Taoyuan City Government fostered e-information transparency in civil and funeral affairs and last but not least, Water Resources Bureau of Tainan City Government made good use of science and technology to fairly identify disaster damage subsidies. It was this ceremony’s hope that by awarding the agencies with good performance, benchmarks for learning could be set.

This November, the international non-governmental organization TRACE released its 2021 Bribery Risk Matrix. The evaluation result showed that among 194 countries around the world, Taiwan ranked 15, making it the first place in Asia. Outstanding result was acquired especially in items of “Government and Civil Service Transparency”, which Minister Tsai took the opportunity of the ceremony to thank those agencies for their perseverance and efforts to clean governance and transparency.

Transparency International Taiwan’s Executive Director Yeh I.J. was also invited to the ceremony and delivered a keynote speech which combined the core evaluation items of the Integrity Awards and the highlights of each agency’s hard work related to clean governance. Following the keynote speech, a comprehensive discussion session was held afterwards with Agency Against Corruption’s Deputy Director-General Chen Rung-Jou as the host and participated by Executive Director Yeh I.J. (who was also the chair of the Integrity Awards’ Evaluation Committee) and other 6 awarded agencies. Together they widely shared the point of views on how to present the highlights of clean governance related works, the benefits of participating in the Integrity Awards and the future prospects of it.

“Administrative Transparency” and “Risk Accountability” are the trends of clean governance. Ministry of Justice is step by step modifying the mechanism of the Tentative Integrity Awards, looking forward to promote it to agencies at all levels around the country. It is our hope that every agency can have the chance to review its own work on clean governance, realizing the goal and belief of the Integrity Awards, which are “Excitation, Commitment, Practice, Participation and Trust”. By doing so, the effectiveness of the government’s clean governance could be trusted by the public.