"It'll be quite soon… within the next few months," Koh, the minister in charge of KPIs for ministries, told reporters here after opening a conference on KPIs for the public sector.
He added that all ministers have submitted their preliminary KPIs for their ministries but the government is still in the process of "fine tuning" the indicators as there are "interdependencies among ministries".
"A ministry's KPI depends on the KPI of other ministries or related departments and that also needs to be sorted out," Koh said. "But what it means is that this is a methodology, which is an internal process at the moment for us to get more focus and be able to mobilise our resources within every ministry or agency to achieve a certain target."
Asked whether the KPI exercise would start showing results within two years, Koh said: "I hope it'll be shorter than two years for some, and for many ministries to get results… we should start getting results as soon as possible."
On the rating and reward system of the KPIs, Koh noted that the government's first approach was not to talk about consequences for now.
"At this stage, let's get everybody on board first before we start to talk about throwing people overboard," he said. "Let's get everybody focused on KPIs first and talk about performance. Promoting (excellence) is better than punishment."
Koh said that eventually, consequences would come into play. "If you have a deviant person (who does not improve) after repeated advice and guidelines and (has a) very negative attitude, you have no choice (but to penalise that person)," he noted.
He added that all ministers were dedicated to the KPI programme and by the end of next month, all ministers, except those overseas, would have attended at least three workshops on KPIs.
Earlier, in his opening address at the event, Koh noted that KPIs have become a key word. "In order to put people first and (achieve) 1Malaysia, there is a need to emphasise on performance now," he said.
"There is a need to transform the economy from production to knowledge (-based). There is a sense of urgency that within two to three years (we need) to overcome the negative effects of this current crisis and increase competitiveness or we will be in deep trouble," he added.
He acknowledged that setting up the KPI system was a "daunting and challenging task".
Nevertheless, Koh said, KPIs have proven to be successful in the corporate sector and in countries such as the UK, Australia and Canada.
In April, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak announced that the performance of his new line-up of Cabinet ministers would be closely monitored through KPIs.