Care to know if policy changes do work?

SOME policies can do more harm than good, making it important to know what effects new rules or policy amendments do to Brunei's business environment. Dr Azaharaini Haji Mohd Jamil, director of the International Graduate Studies College and former director of the Centre for Strategic and Policy Studies, shares his insights on why the government should take an extra initiative to compile data and conduct policy evaluation.

BT: Tell us about compiling research and data.

Dr Azaharaini: Someone has to do the evaluation on whether the (policy) recommendations that are taken on board are helping. There has to be some kind of audit to find out what the stumbling blocks are (in the growth of enterprises) and the sort of thing so that we know whether we are progressing.

Stumbling blocks?

I'm not so sure if this auditing has been done before but even to identify what the stumbling blocks are is very important. Maybe if they discover that there are 30 stumbling blocks, then next year we can monitor how many have already been abolished. We have talked about this now and then, but we have yet to see development in this area.

Could you give some examples of the possible stumbling blocks that SMEs normally come across in Brunei?

Bureaucratic hindrance. There has to be an audit of the rules and regulations with a rule to abolish at least a third of them. There are a lot of stumbling blocks that have to be audited... If we want to know if we are progressing, there has to be an agency to monitor this. I believe there is one, but I have not seen any information anywhere in terms of what they have done in reducing the bureaucracy.

Could you give an example of a regulation that should be audited?

For example, the corporate tax was one of the recent amendments that was made and it has been reduced. It is good that the government is giving some relief on taxes, but they should not just give some relief without actually monitoring it. What is the impact of that? It was done about a year ago. There could be a trend developing from this amendment. Are there more SMEs developing out of this tax (amendment)?

How important is this type of auditing?

Monitoring and seeing whether we are improving is important. Right now, the popular thing people are talking about in terms of the stumbling blocks is licensing. In terms of application, it is taking a lot of time, and there appears to be no progressing. Of course, the government is doing something about it, but we don't know what the procedures involved are and whether the people involved in these procedures have an open mind. Are they still stuck on the old regime? If that is so, how can we expect development?

Without that change of mindset, would e-government still be of use?

e-Government is very useful, but then it goes back to people looking after the procedures. Are they being updated? What about their mindset? Has it changed? Do they try as much as possible to develop SMEs? Or are they trying to kill them? "Killing" may be a strong word, but what I mean by "killing" is whether they are putting up more stumbling blocks (that are) killing a business.

In this regard, have there been any improvements or changes this year?

It is very hard to see the improvements, if there are any improvements, partly because of the recession, and policy amendments are coinciding with the recession. In reality, there could be improvements, but because of the recession, I think that kind of improvement is superseded, and not seen.

What about funding? Would that be something that the government could monitor and then come up with newer models of funding?

There are many models going around, which Brunei can follow and I believe that what they have now is just a couple, but there are more examples around that they can adapt to the Brunei environment. But it won't be easy because of the different environment that Brunei has.

In Indonesia, for example, if you're making a book and it costs 50 cents and then you sell it, by sheer volume, you can become a millionaire, but here, how many people will buy that? The size of the local market is a disadvantage, but many people say that it is not a problem because the world is their market.

But would marketing internationally be easy for companies?

With a lot of hard work and effort, it can be done, but coupled with the fact that there is a lack of experienced entrepreneurs in Brunei, there would be a lot of cost and work involved.

Would it help if the doors were open wider to foreign companies?Yes, that could be encouraged so that Brunei can benefit from the technology transfer. But on the other hand, striking the right balance is a very difficult thing to do. On one hand, we want to (foster growth of) local businesses, but on the other hand, we need to bring in expertise from outside, and it is a difficult thing to balance. As long as whatever action we take we monitor, we will be able to see if that action is benefiting us. And that is what we are lacking. You have these things implemented, but there is no evaluation to see whether it should continue or (we should) try another solution. The monitoring aspect is lacking in Brunei and that is that basis on making further decisions.The Brunei Times