Jakarta. Indonesia must improve open government and talent management to establish clean and efficient governance, which is key for the country to improve the wellbeing of its people and ensure sustainable economic growth, the Boston Consulting Group said on Wednesday.

The BCG report came as observers start to doubt the commitment of President Joko Widodo — who come to power on a promise to clean up the bureaucracy — in fighting corruption, after putting forward a graft suspect as the next National Police chief.

Indonesia now ranks 38th on the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Report, well behind other Association of Southeast Asian Nations such as Singapore and Malaysia, as an inefficient bureaucracy and corruption plague its government institutions.

“Indonesia [still] suffers from a lack of transparency, leading to potentially higher corruption,” the BCG said in its report titled: “Accelerating Toward Greater and More Sustainable Prosperity.”

A Corruption Perception Index report from Transparency International has ranked Indonesia in 107th place among 175 countries — on par with Argentina and Djibouti.

But the BCG pointed out that Indonesia made progress toward digital government, being one of the eight founding countries to launch the Open Government Initiative. It has also launched initiatives such as the One Service, which pools online services from 50 of its agencies.

In addition to improving transparency, Indonesia needs to recruit, retain and manage the best talent in its government institutions.

“The key to creating an effective and high-performing civil service is attracting a highly talented workforce,” the BCG said in the report.

The consulting agency noted that public sector jobs have lost their appeal for people of the so-called Generation Y— those born between the 1980s and early 2000s — with 64 percent of them preferring to work in multinational companies, compared to just 4 percent in the government.

“Job stability, a traditional proposition for a government career, no longer attracts those in Gen-Y,” the BCG said, “In order to appeal to the best of the Gen-Y talent pool, the government must become a working environment that values and rewards strong performance and provides a clear and fast advancement track for high performers.”

Indonesia implemented performance-linked salary increases for government officials in 2013, but the BCG pointed out the system can still be improved.

Singapore ties 40 percent of its officials’ salaries to their individual performance.