Wednesday, October 31, 2007
THE editorial "Bureaucracy must help SMEs (The Brunei Times, August 1, 2007) which specifically highlighted the finding of a University Brunei Darussalam lecturer under a title "Overcome red tape to be more productive" (The Brunei Times, July 26, 2007), and your report: "23 years on QCC still not a success, says Minister" (The Brunei Times, August 21, 2007), conveys the exasperation and disappointment of the Minister of Home Affairs in the futility of the QCC exercise, and your other editorials and reports on this very delicate national subject, form a rich dossier on this negative, costly situation.
And now at the just ended Australian Apec Summit 2007, this negative situation somehow has been given a worldwide attention. The Government of His Majesty the Sultan dan Yang Di-Pertuan of Brunei Darussalam made a worldwide public undertaking in its report on giving "high priority to producing skilled, disciplined, well educated, motivated and versatile civil servants who can adapt quickly to a (rapid) changing environment (so as) to be more efficient in carrying out its function, roles and responsibilities that will facilitate national development... (and) to ensure this transformation. The Prime Minister's Office will provide (strong and ) effective leadership ."
This world-public undertaking in fact reflects all those titahs of His Majesty the Sultan dan Yang Di Pertuan of Brunei Darussalam on this perennial national concern, as we shall touch on below.
The information culled from some of these reports on the negative situation has once again prompted us to brood over this pressing perennial national issue and concern. Nationally, directly and indirectly, every citizen is affected to a greater or lesser degree by those "many stumbling national issues" (borrowing your emphasis, in The Brunei Times, "Make SMEs engine of growth, says His Majesty"(July 16, 7-2007).
We are thus compelled to write and submit this new discourse. As a mentor to several fledgling entrepreneurs/risk takers and their SMEs, and as a student of comparative economic development, and of financial management we have had experienced, are and no doubt will be experiencing the agonising pains of those entrepreneurs' mental pains, financial strains and even losses. These bitter experiences had been, are being and will continue to be, inflicted by the inefficiencies, and delays of those overzealous straggler bureaucrats, whom we call "Little Napoleons"; these sufferings are being exacerbated by those overzealous straggler Little Napoleons' lack of empathy and lack of understanding.
This very worrying situation, which has become regularly mentioned in our local newspapers, in particular your newspapers and their editorials, has very much preoccupied public minds. Your newspaper has highlighted the contents of the many sovereign titahs of His Majesty the Sultan dan Yang Dipertuan of Brunei Darussalam on this national concern. The latest being carried by your newspaper "Make SMEs engine of growth, says His Majesty", (The Brunei Times, July 16, 2007).
Thus, at the risk of being accused of as a strident anti-bureaucrats and repeating ourselves (because these concerns and issue are stubbornly tenacious), this latest acute national concern has spurred our adrenalin to once again join in this national foray. This interminable saga of what the nation must now do has been made acute by the delicate state of Brunei Darussalam's macroeconomic situation, as reported by your newspaper. "Brunei economy contracts 3.6% in first quarter" (The Brunei Times. September 2, 2007); and "Brunei's farm sector needs a shot in the arm" (The Brunei Times September 14, 2007),and now your report "Economic growth not fast enough, says VC", (The Brunei Times, September 19,2007), and this delicate situation is irreversibly related to "No room for complacency as oil dwindles". (The Brunei Times, September 1, 2006).
(Macro economically, businesses in Brunei have to contend with a phenomenon called "one-week-demand-peak-after-payday", which is worsened by outflows (leakages) of purchasing power during long holidays and weak tourism inflows to compensate the outflows. Now, some restaurants are clamouring to apply for licences to sell fireworks to tide over weak demand doldrums, in spite of the fact that food is a basic necessity.)
The deleterious, recalcitrant bureaucratic overzealous mentality, anti business attitude and lack of empathetic consideration and understanding, has also become a sort of our international embarrassment. For convenience, we collectively term these deleterious traits as "bureaucratic deleterious elements".
It is deleterious because that distinct species, the "Little Napoleons", within the bureaucracy genus, are in fact termites in the socio-economic pillars of our country's long term survival. But how to make them accountable? (The Editorial, The Brunei Times- July 12, 2007). How to apply "administrative pesticide" against them? Successful and flourishing SMEs are the saviour. Why kill the bees if you love the honey?
On the other hand, it is embarrassing because of their increasing exposure these negative images have received world attention. These deleterious bureaucratic elements have gone beyond the realism of our national complacency cliche into the critical throes of our long term national survival. We are proven to be unable, for our own good, to effectively solve our bureaucratic problems, to the extent that we have been embarrassingly told how to manage our own socio-economic affairs by the World Market Research Centre that "it (the Brunei Government) needs to improve the country's infrastructure and cut bureaucracy." (The Brunei Times, February 17, 2007: "Risk rating, Brunei 3rd best in region.")
Now, at the time of writing this discourse we are taken aback by these reports "Declining interest in Civil Service Awards alarming" (The Brunei Times September 18, 2007) (!), and "Competitiveness key to success", (The Brunei Times, September 19, 2007). This surprising negative development seems to be an antithesis to the very promising positive action the Government proclaimed at the recent Australian Apec Summit 2007.
The world knows that we are still chasing our own tail, rather than moving upward our socio-economic progress. After all these 23 years, we have been unable to release ourselves from those shackles of bureaucratic antipathy which causes shortcomings, inefficiencies, delays and cross purposes which have seriously impaired the births, growth and flourishing of our SMEs; and worse, those bureaucrats' strong propensity for criminalising our helpless victims, who are themselves the victims of these bureaucratic deleterious elements, is in fact a national self-inflicted economic atrophy.
To those Little Napoleons, the illusion of invincibility and power is sacred to them than the national urgency for economic growth. The situation is getting more acute. Time and opportunities lost forever. These Little Napoleons must be jolted and be made to realise that real authority comes from sincere desire, empathy and ability to serve efficiently. "It is easier to pull down than to build up" — (Latin proverb.)
Yang Dimuliakan Pehin Orang Kaya Lela Raja Dato Seri Laila Jasa Haji Awang Abdul Rahman bin Haji Awang Karim, DSLJ, PJK was formerly Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Defence
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Time to act on cancer in the Civil Service machinery
TO ANYONE who has been fortunate (or unfortunate depending on how one chooses to view things) to have worked in the government sector, it is not difficult to spot the many truths that were presented in the dialogue on the need to improve delivery system of the Brunei Civil Service presented in The Brunei Times by former Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Defence Pehin Dato Rahman Karim.
As someone who was with the public sector for almost a decade, and finally deciding to leave it in pursuit of other (maybe greener) pastures, I find the points brought up by Pehin strike a chord.
For anyone who has had to deal with government offices know Little Napoleans do run around government ministries, sometimes with great impunity as to what shoddy service they wish to provide to the public.
Many have experienced, including myself, first hand, government officers who take it as part of their daily respon-sibilities to go through some illusory power trip in government departments such as Immigration, Customs, Land Transport, to name but a few, the bureaucratic antipathy that Pehin mentioned in this part of his dialogue which were carried in the daily in 10 instalments from October 31 to November 10.
It is all too deeply ingrained into the psyche of the government officer, and worryingly, into the very culture and personality of the government machinery, with the public sometimes belittled by so-called government officers who are paid to serve the public.
In the public's case, one cannot help but feel that those Little Napoleans who are sitting behind government desks as pencil pushers actually think and feel that they should hold the public accountable for making their daily lives difficult by giving them work to do.
Pehin's dialogue which has been submitted post-government tenure also speaks of the main issue with tackling the issue at hand and that is this: The simple truth of the matter is no one in government today, while sitting in their Permanent Secretary or ministerial roles, has shown sufficient commitment to actually clean up the government service and be personally held responsible for any failure to do so.
If there are such individuals, their attempts are swamped by the enormity of the task at hand, and that whatever good they may have done or are trying to do for their particular department is washed away by the tide of culture that supports the reward of Little Napoleans rather than rooting them out.
Any attempt at cleaning up the government must be done with sufficient commitment with top leaders in our country delivering an ultimatum that if any government department and its respective leaders do not clean up shop, they would pay the price of failure with their jobs.
While the threat of punishment may not be the answer to all of the civil service's problem, it is perhaps a small start to the very obvious spread of a cancer through our government machinery.
The question is, how long is our leadership prepared to tolerate the existing situation before they are moved to act on the issue and remove this cancer before it spreads even further?
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