By Syed Akbar Ali
The KPIs for the Cabinet will soon be up for first review. The first six months are coming up fast.
We should focus on economic development for all. This must be our priority. There must be more and more application of science, technology, common sense and logic in our daily lives. We must become a technology intensive society. This also means continuous scientific and technical advancement in all areas of the economy.
All Ministries and Ministers who handle work which has an economic impact on the country should have (in their KPI) the requirement that they must bring in a certain amount of major economic investments in their respective Ministries, including a sizeable amount of Foreign Direct Investment.
Lets take the Ministry of Agriculture and the Ministry of Transport. The Minister of Agriculture can have it in his KPI to bring in a certain amount of investments by international food companies or agricultural corporations from the
It could be bringing in a major food company, major farm producer, large scale fish farmers etc. We should not just leave this to the Minister of International Trade. Also the expertise in food and agriculture should be with the Ministry of Agriculture – so at least in theory the Minister of Agriculture would have more expert knowledge and have better chance of attracting foreign investments in his own area of expertise.
Similarly the Minister of Transportation should be given a target of bringing in X number of foreign airlines to use our country as a stopover destination or as a travel hub. Or he could bring in port operators and oversee the establishment of new ports, including new duty free zones and free trades zones around the country’s borders (with
There are many other targets that can be created for each Ministry but the general idea is we need not burden the entire task of attracting investments on the shoulders of the Ministry of International Trade and Industry only.
All Ministries must be tuned towards economic growth and as far as possible all Ministers must play an equal part.
We also have to rethink the way our Cabinet and Government is organized. Basically we are still doing what the orang putih told us to do. It works but we have to change things sometimes to suit our requirements.
As a young country, economic growth should be our priority. Everything must be done to hasten economic growth. Sometimes in the developing world, we tend to tie ourselves up in knots without knowing why. (The Kartika case is a good example).
We can do it our own way. For example we have a Ministry of Finance which is quite powerful. It oversees financial spending and also oversees institutions like Bank Negara
But the real economic management (moving the earth, building the infrastructure, giving licenses etc) is in the various frontline Ministries like MITI, Transport, Agriculture and others.
We should have a new Ministry of Economic Affairs which should encompass Ministerial responsibility and functions over international trade (MITI) including MIDA, Domestic Trade, Bank Negara Malaysia, the SEC, Income Tax, Customs, land, housing and building development, run the ports and the airports. Even Immigration can be placed under the new Ministry. One mega Ministry of Economic Affairs.
The Ministry (not the Minister) will be vested with a very large amount of power and influence. Such a Ministry must be made open to more detailed scrutiny and safeguarded by ensuring higher levels of transparency (I can almost hear the sniggers but it can be done).
The Ministry may be led by a team – a Minister and two or three Deputy Ministers assisted perhaps by more than one KSU along well defined lines of responsibility and reporting. Routine functions can be delegated to the KSUs with reporting only to the Minister.
Presently we have one Ministry drawing in foreign investors, foreigners, students etc. Then we find that containers unloaded at ports are held up by the Customs Department. The foreign investors can go crazy.
The Ministry of Tourism (or Culture?) may attract foreign filmmakers to come here (even a Bollywood movie may now spend about RM1.0 million per movie shoot in Malaysia) but actors and movie directors have been arrested and thrown in jail by the Immigration Department because their travel documents were not in order.
All this costs the country a lot of opportunity. We are losing opportunities by the shiploads and plane loads because of the way our Government is set up (or not set up). We need new thinking, out side the box thinking.
What happens to the Treasury? Treasury should be just that - a Treasury which monitors (not prepares) Budgets, dispenses funds (signs cheques) and makes sure there is enough money for Government expenditure. Treasury becomes purely a ‘Financial Controllers’ office.
Sometimes the best way to achieve things faster is to reorganize. No natural law says you must eat with your right hand or that we must drive on the left side of the road. These are just conventions. They are not written in stone. We do not have the luxury of time to be wasted.
And there is absolutely no harm in thinking either.
4 comments:
The kithab states KNOW THYSELF.For one are you the thinker?Let settle this by allowing us just five minutes and not allow a single thought to arise in our mind.If as thinker we decide to creat or not create thought,how come we have no control over it?Once you submit to the working of Tuhan,it is not difficult to embrace Inshaalah totally as the thoughts that leads to our actions belongs to Allah and down loaded to each of us in accordance to his script.
The mechanism of thinking is involuntary just like our digestion and all work on the grace of Tuhan.Most thinking are conditioned by society[the egoic mind]However Tuhan can have wisdom downloaded direct[intution] as we would term as OUTSIDE THE BOX.
syed -all nice ideas-watching tv3 news while reading your blog
the story is in machang where chicken is reared in unhygienic conditions and the whole village is full of flies for the last 30 years , unbelievable they have to have their meals under a mosquito net /the school canteen full of flies-
instead of having another ministry with more redtape being created , we really have to look at the delivery system of the local 'bandar rayas' which are really inefficent , what can we all do besides writing in blogs
S,
The current generation of leaders has always got things easy; and as such their energy and resources are channeled more towards ensuring political survival, more often than not through insidious and maligning party intrigues.
The amount of money and resources wasted this way is simply mind boggling.
Altruism and the concept of services beyond self are just not with them.
As an example, we will continue to see that things like wiping out money politic is just another lip service, another flavour of the day. In reality, status quo must be maintained at all cost (TS Isa Samad is a good case in point).
And in the case of TS Isa Samad, the leadership is just not providing the kind of leadership that they should give. They are just scared shit to take unpopular route, though it's the right thing to do.
To ask this crop of leaders to 'think' and 'think out of the box' is just like asking Mufti Harussani to stop issuing further fatwa, no matter how stupid his fatwas have been. They just don't have it!
Though I still believe in UMNO and BN, how I wish they lose this time. Do you still want to go to PD?
A.
Syed, share with you a good read. It's nice to know when all different parties work together for the good of Malaysia and it's people
http://www.chichang.net/
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