Our Efficiency Ranking

I have been quite lukewarm about rankings, especially when it's made on some criteria which as a general rule is biased. So when the PM in his address to an assembly of public servants at the PICC glowed on what was published in "The World Competitiveness Yearbook" published by IMD of Switzerland that out government efficiecy level is at number 6 for nations whose population is above 20 million, and we surpassed the developed countries such as the UK, Germany, Japan and France, I was quite sceptical and thought that this is just one of the run-ups for the coming Elections. Today I came across the local daily on the interview with the Chief Secretary and read the full text of the question and answer session. Again I am one of those who do not just swallow every printed word as the truth. Although it's axiomatic that we have improved the delivery time of issuance of passports and identity cards and also the refunds of overpaid income tax, but there's still room for improvement, especially delivery of services from the so-called one stop centres of govt. depts.Our land offices are notoriously poor in executing land transfers and some officials from Selangor had been prosecuted for falsification of such transfers. The inefficiency of land administration is one of the main reason why corruption thrives. As I was curious to see how true is some of the claims made by PEMUDAH which is a joint committee comprising public servants and corporate executives, I just wanted to find out what had been done. One of the claims by PEMUDAH is the no wrong door policy, which means whatever problem is given to the Committee none will be put aside even though the matter is not under their purvies. So I sent an e-mail to the Chief Secretary of the Govt. on sunday morning complaining about the dilatoriness of the Unclaimed Moneys Dept. in settling my claim. I received a reply instantly which was a pleasent surprise. One swallow does not make a summer, but this swallow is not an ordinary one and I replied to praise the Chief Secretary for his quick reply and expressed my wish that all Sec-Gens, Dir-Gens and Heads of Local authorities would follow his footstep, that would be wonderful. Only and if such a "leadership by example" is filtering at all levels of the bureaucracy, then I'll believe that we can reach for the stars. Well done and I take my hat off to the Malaysian Public Service.