By Debra Chong
The Malaysian Insider
Nov 25, 2011
KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 25 — Malaysia only needs two years to break into the World Bank’s top 10 list of most competitive countries in the world, Putrajaya’s No. 1 public servant told The Malaysian Insider.
In a recent exclusive interview, Tan Sri Sidek Hassan said for the country to be a top performer the private sector needed to grow in tandem with its civil service.
“Our country can become more competitive by having the public sector 20 to 50 years ahead and bring it to today; and have the corporate sector 50 years ahead and bring it to today. Then, our country Malaysia can indeed be Number 1,” the chief secretary to the government said.
By that, he meant both government and private businesses needed to devise ways to fulfil the customer’s existing needs and anticipate future requirements before anyone else did.
And Sidek believes that Malaysians are ready to take on the challenge.
He noted that Malaysia had jumped five spots to 18th from 23rd in the World Bank’s ranking for 2012 in ease of doing business on the back of Putrajaya-led reforms, coming in fifth among all East Asian economies behind Singapore, Hong Kong, Korea and Thailand.
This comes after the nation regained its 21st place ranking in the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Index this year after falling to 26th in 2010.
“We are there but we have not arrived yet,” Sidek said, acknowledging the government’s weaknesses in filing taxes and issuing construction permits for foreign investors as highlighted in the 2012 Ease of Doing Business report.
“Our challenge is to be in the top 10 and it’s not about the very distant future. I’m talking about the next couple of years,” he added, confidently.
He noted that reforms were already being rolled out across the civil sector and only needed continuous follow-up action across the board to bring all administrative levels up to par.
Putrajaya’s decision to raise the retirement age to 60, he said, was a boon given that many senior civil officials were still mentally fit and had the added edge of experience to complement the annual injection of younger blood.
The top bureaucrat added that the government’s push to bring in more hires from the private sector was another boon as it created what he described as “cross fertilisation” and stirred friendly office rivalry.
“It is always good to have people coming from outside… at a pretty senior level because it complements what we have in the areas that we don’t have yet. That competition is good [because] people compete to be at the top and [we] get the best out of everybody there,” he said.
Sidek explained that the bureaucracy, too used to obeying rules even when outdated, needed help to learn how to be innovative and recognise when rules needed to evolve to keep up with the changed times.
Civil servants by training are asked to follow the rules,” he said.
“Our challenge here therefore is to keep up with time. In fact, we should be ahead of the time, ahead of the curve. It is what we in the Malaysian public service should be doing and in many instance we have been ahead,” he said, pointing out as a model example the Immigration’s swift issuance of passports within an hour.
In contrast, he noted that airlines in the private sector could take more than two hours to issue travel tickets to their customers.
Sidek said he had advised colleagues stuck for ideas to improve the government’s service to put themselves in the customer’s position.
He related a past experience of being stuck in a non-moving line at the Road Transport Department counter to renew his driver’s licence as having inspired him to look into ways to magic away the physical queue.
“I think what’s most important is the mindset,” he said, adding bureaucrats now understood they gained by simplifying red tape.
“I’m sure things will improve even better in the future.”
Malaysia can leap into World Bank top 10 list in 2 years?
Too long lah, sidek.
Earlier this year, Malaysia leaped into the top democracy in the world in just 1 second. (According the jibbi)
He is an idealist and he alone can not help to achieve what it need to be among the top 10. He has to understand the culture and work attitude of the public servants. They may have improved but it is still way out of the mark.
Much of the fund allocated to upgrade the hardware have been wasted. The computers system still cannot cope be the demand as what happened in the immigration department during the school holidays.
When it is easier to renew driving licence…by getting rid of mostly Chinese touts…they call “magic way”…improvement.
And so…more magic ways are planned to to get World Bank rate Malaysia top 10 competitive country in the world.
Every little improvement against corruptions is magic way to the most corrupted government in the world.
They are so corrupted..doing anything to get rid of bribery and corruptions is magic way to them.
Stealing by the billions…People’s money… by UMNO b leaders are considered an holy act..to use part of it..to buy Malaysians and make them slaves to easy living…without hard for the money.
You keep on reading any Najib’s publicity mouth piece and believe it…you must be nuts.
They know…they can never compete against the top 5 in SEA for millions are made drug addicts by money matters….by them for decades.
Just vote for a change in Govt.
Actions speaks louder than words…and words are all we keep hearing from these corrupted lot…to keep on fooling Malaysians.
/// “Our country can become more competitive by having the public sector 20 to 50 years ahead and bring it to today; and have the corporate sector 50 years ahead and bring it to today. Then, our country Malaysia can indeed be Number 1,” the chief secretary to the government said. ///
What he is saying is this: That umno could send some umnoputras into the future (20 / 50 yrs ahead) and then bring ideas from the future back to today and then apply them here and now.
In fact it is already happenning.
/// “We are there but we have not arrived yet,” Sidek said. ///
It is not clear what he really meant by this statement. The reference to “arrived yet” could be a reference to two possible destinations (i) the future; or (ii) back home, to the present.
Of course his next statement seems to throw some light into this little area for he said:
/// “It is always good to have people coming from outside … ///
Quite obviously he regards returning umnoputras as somewhat different for he calls them “people coming from outside”. Well the point is there was the mention of “coming” of people “coming”. So back to the foregoing issue, I take it that those umnoputras have in fact reached the future and had in fact “belajar”ed “sambil” “melawat”ed the future and are now returning to the present as “people coming from outside”.
So you see. It is not enough for umnoputras to be the supreme race of the present world. Umnoputra wants to the supreme race of all times, past, present and future. I am speaking the truth for I happened to call one of those umnoputra time travellers on his cellphone one day. He described to me the world in 2040 and told me about a strange encounter. He saw someone begging for rambutans!
/// “We are there but we have not arrived yet,” Sidek said. ///
Sidek dreamed that he was sitting in HG Well’s time machine and had travelled 50 years into the future. When he wakes up, he will tell his wife, “We aren’t there but we have arrived! “
/// In a recent exclusive interview, Tan Sri Sidek Hassan said for the country to be a top performer the private sector needed to grow in tandem with its civil service. ///
Malaysia must be the only country in the world where the private sector has to catch up with the public sector. You mean the Malaysian civil service is so efficient and competitive?
/// “Our country can become more competitive by having the public sector 20 to 50 years ahead and bring it to today; and have the corporate sector 50 years ahead and bring it to today. Then, our country Malaysia can indeed be Number 1,” the chief secretary to the government said. ///
Can some kind soul please translate the above into Engrish? I catch no ball.
Another delusion political civil servant. IF Malaysia private sector were like our civil service, we would end up in the same group as Zimbabwe and Sudan..
He is speaking of time travel – only a theoretical possibility today. Therefore in true umno style, he is speaking of the impossible. Something which umno has neither the ability nor desire to strive for. This is transformed sloganeering ala cara jibby the jib. But unlike bumblebee which I believe one could never have guessed the robot beneath the car body – unless one has seen the transformation in process – jib’s transformation is quite see-through. In other words, one could see very clearly umno’s bad and extremely lame sloganeering effort beneath the time travel fantasy.
But what struck his head and planted that idea in his mind? Bomoh with the usual dark magic. Umno must be desperate. Umno must be totally fearful of losing GE13. So umno must have consulted the bomoh for a peak into the future. Needless to say, it was bad news for umno. Otherwise, umno need not behave so terribly.
Can’t blame this sucker as Election is around corner! Bunch of BN suckers always try all means to win hearts and votes…
After Election is over, you can hardly smell this sweet craps coming out their mouths…
Absolutely, another two more years, Bolehland will be enlisted in the Bankruptcy List as those in Europe!!
Based on WORDS and SLOGANEERING, Sidek we have even crossed the 22nd Century! This Bolehland is not short on making news on the popularity parade created through local news media. I like to know TOP 10 in what? In cheating its people? Or in making false news headlines! We have actually reached the stage which is created in self-belief; this is when trouble start when we believe in the images created by our own illusion! We have to call for David Copperfield!
We should be happy if we do not fall from the 21st position. Competitiveness based on cheap migrant labor is false competitiveness. Such competitiveness will collapse over time.
YES, indeed, Malaysia CAN leap in2 World Bank top 10 list in 2 years, if we KICK OUT UmnoB/BN n REPLACE UmnoB/BN with PR in Putrajaya in d next GE! ABU, ABU, ABU!
TheWrathOfGrape,
I think he means, assuming time STOP for other countries, the public sector needs 20 -50 years and private sector needs 50 years for us to be top 10 in the world. Our public sector is always ahead of private sector.