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TIME FOR OVERHAUL

26/08/2016 00:28:00 By Martin Dlamini

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LOW cost, high impact, rapid execution. These are the key words that underscore any public service delivery initiative by the Malaysian Government and have helped it save over E17 billion since 2009.

Low cost being the most reasonable price that government should pay for a project or service using taxpayer’s money.
High impact refers to the greatest benefit accrued to the intended beneficiaries, the taxpaying citizens. Rapid execution is getting things done within the planned or quickest possible time frame which goes a long way towards reducing costs.

This is Malaysia’s new approach to attaining the aspirations of Vision 2020, to become an advanced high income country. The government has adopted a Blue Ocean Strategy (BOS) as a vehicle to drive this process. Essentially the strategy focuses on finding new, unexplored opportunities in public service delivery using a win-win approach where more is delivered with fewer resources but with greater impact.

His Majesty the King was invited by Malaysia to a showcase of its successes last week and the results made quite an impression on him. Speaking to the media upon his return home, he said the BOS approach is something government should consider if this country is to succeed in attaining the aspirations of Vision 2022.

Suppose government were to heed the King’s advice, a massive overhaul of the current planning, budgeting, tendering, implementation and monitoring processes would need to be undertaken simply because our government mantra is exactly the opposite of the Malaysia BOS. This is not to suggest Malaysia is free of corruption, but the Asian country’s ranking in the world’s top ten best performing economies speaks volumes about how they do things compared to our country, which sits among the lowest performing economies of the world.

That’s because when we plan for projects, we think highest cost, lowest impact and slow execution. Instead of saving billions of taxpayer’s money, we milk the Treasury until it bleeds.

Any attempt to put a stop to this has been met with very stiff opposition from the vultures feasting on State funds. How else do you explain the silence of the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC)? The last we checked there were 10 cases ready for prosecution and over 1 000 cases under active investigation. Why are we not putting our money in hiring more judges for corruption cases?

Shouldn’t we be seeing a rapid execution of all cases pending in the DPP’s office in order to save costs by having less corruption through sentencing and jail terms that would serve as a deterrent? The high impact of this would be a better implementation of national projects and value for money for the taxpayer.

We need not look very far to see what our attitude is towards national projects. Take the example of the on-going 36th Ordinary SADC Summit of Heads of State and Government that we are hosting.
Can one find low cost, high impact and rapid execution for this event? The desire by the King to host a very successful and memorable summit should not be kidnapped by greed where only the highest cost will do.

The tendering processes should not be by-passed in the name of rapid execution, opening the floodgates to corruption with no fear of reprisals; what with the ACC hibernating. If this happens, then the benefit of hosting SADC would have been lost in the pursuit of personal enrichment at the cost of the taxpayer.
It would be a shame really because this greed would have blinded the crooks to the fact that the King would be remembered by all delegates of the SADC Summit for his government’s wasteful expenditure.
This is not the legacy we want to associate with the King’s chairmanship of SADC, especially given the fact that his key mandate will be resource mobilisation for the numerous initiatives that this organ seeks to implement.
The summit is an opportunity for the King and country to showcase an ability to pool resources, plan properly and spend wisely. It is fair to say the King and SADC committee has been able to pool quite a reasonable sum of money from companies and individuals locally to help fund the event.
We remain optimistic that the King’s visit to Malaysia will count for something in all future government initiatives, as well as those he will be overseeing as SADC chairperson.
Low cost, high impact and rapid execution requires meticulous planning where feasibility studies give proper direction on projects before implementation, so that we all derive maximum benefit from the impact they have on the economy and our well-being as citizens.
We need a government that does not misinterpret the King’s word to mean breaking the law to get things done at whatever cost because, as the recently ended Peoples Parliament (Sibaya) will testify, it is setting him up against the people.