Tuesday, February 13, 2007

Would the Govt really listen or merely hearing?

The Government is inviting Malaysians from all walks of life to give suggestions on how to improve the public service delivery system.

You can e-mail your suggestions to improve@mampu.gov.my from now until Monday.

The Malaysian Administrative Modernisation and Management Planning Unit (Mampu), under the Prime Minister’s Department, will compile your feedback and submit it to the department.

Mampu said it was drawing up a plan to produce a “modern, responsive and effective” public service.

“Mampu invites all Malaysians to submit proposals or suggest improvements which can be implemented in the short, medium and long term.

“The civil service should redouble efforts to elevate the nation’s position to the Top 10 in any global competency report, as suggested by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi,”Mampu said.

This news is heartening and received as good news but not new. The govt wanted to improve the efficiency and quality of service of the police force and a commission was setup to study and made recommendations. Till today, that plan was meant for the shelve - archived - for good.


The government had on various occasions instructed the treasury to ensure that contractors be paid on time, and this was repeated so many times over the 3 years since Pak Lah became PM. The situation is analogous of the imminent past.

The 880 projects to be awarded as promised...most of it is still in the drawing table, for various reasons - could not be implemented, primarily because the project funds had yet to be made available. Cakap Tak Boleh Serupa Bikin.

9th Malaysia Plan and RM200bil projects - plan done, published and spinned, most of it is under negotiation and the primary issue is still political charitable transactions unfulfilled.

When Pak Lah came into power, he had assured that projects will be awarded on an open tender basis. So far, almost all, if not all the projects are negotiated-DBT/Turnkeyed, except for some Class D, E and Class F contracts. I even had seen a letter of intent for a project that is only worth RM5mil and is also negotiated contract. Where is the open-transparent tender system. Ask JKR if they are honest enough to tell the truth: how many projects had they awarded by open tender system as compared to negotiated ones.

BTW I would like to make a suggestion on the delivery system affecting the construction industry. CIDB is collecting hundreds of millions each year from the contractors; what had these contributing contractors gained apart from the few cronies who got some jobs in India, Sri Lanka and Vietnam?

Thousands of contractors are small and medium size who are not eyeing overseas project; what do they get from CIDB? Isn't CIDB the construction industry development board that is suppose to promote the level of competency and knowledge in construction management? Why is it that they are only drawing up seminars and issuing greencards?

That's all they can do? I mean: promotion of the construction industry as a whole is all about issuing greencard, organizing seminars and certifying project managers? A great shame!

The construction industry needed commercial databases such as the prices of materials at the various district and states nationwide, the cost of labour for each of the various trade for each state and district throughout the country, the productivity indexes, for example: a skilled carpenter will do 10ms/manday, skilled bricklayer productivity is about 9ms/manday, all of which would assist the industry to formulate a tracking system to monitor and control the project schedule. Other informations needed by the industry players are such as Cost databases, Quality Assurance Plan and Project Quality Plan (templates and best practices) Risk Registers templates: Risk identification, quantification and risk response planning and industry best practices on construction risk management ----- contractors don't need seminars from CIDB; there are plenty being organized by private institutions and most organizations have in-house training and workshops for their technical personnels. Contractors must have competent project managers but for CIDB to certify them, they, the certifiers from CIDB, must themselves be competent and accredited project managers, and had been certified and accredited by a recognized international accredited institution such as PMI, USA or APM, UK.


I won't write to Mampu; if anyone from Mampu read this, you may pick it up as a sign of your readiness to accept criticism and suggestions for improvement.



4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Don't waste time lah. They have been scrutinizing blogs more than we can imagine. No action is the best action for them. Otherwise, plundering will be more difficult.

Mampu...mereka mampu sapu bersih-bersih wang rakyat!

Anonymous said...

agreed with you

Anonymous said...

They name it MAMPU, because they don't intend to make real implementation, since it is no "INGIN".

It waste my breath by critic them.

Anonymous said...

Suggestion for improvement

To improve, just look at some good examples. One good example is to learn from Singapore Government - but we need to put one side our pride.

Here is what we should focus on:

1. Pay Government servant wells and make them work.

2. Downsize the number of Govt staff by 40% and the money saved should be distributed to remaining staff so that their earnings will be almost at par with private sector.

Focus on increase Govt staff productivity through effective management & reward system. Learn from private sector.

3. Motivate and guide non performer to excel in their work. Failure to perform should be removed/sacked.

4. Stern disciplinary actions must be taken against undisciplined staff who breach rules and regulations, and contract of work. Start working on with Heads of Dept first.

5. Strengthen & empower Anti Corruption Agencies. Declare war against corruptions & abuses of power. These negative elements if not checked will result in poor enforcement.

Poor enforcement leads to increase of drug smuggling and abuse. Drug abuse leads to increase of HIV cases and idle youths.

Corruptions, abuse of power lead to wastage,project failures and unaccountability.

6. Cut down Govt bureaucracy and red tape

7. Cut down Govt spending on luxurious celebrations, functions and sports

8. Increments and promotions must be based on performance and results achieved as done in private sector.


9. Watch military budget and spending. A lot of talk about confidentiality in project awards and implementations.

H.A. Lim