Part Eight:

Evaluation, Feedback And Impact: Planning and Budgeting For A New Public Service Culture

Every year, around the months of late October/early November, the country and the respective states will be gripped with the Annual Budget. Like the rest of the country, the State Budget is closely related and linked to our Five-Year Development Plan. The Budget sets out what is in store for the coming year in terms of development and other expenditures – the latter is encapsulated in the terms operating, recurring and/or maintenance expenses. The Budget reveals to us the state of the economy on a global, regional and national basis, the state of our revenue and our financial strength, the policy direction which is mostly fiscal in nature to govern and regulate our economy (such as through tax regimes and other quantitative measures) or some inkling of monetary policy (although this is handled by Bank Negara).

Financiers, investors and analysts would explore the Budget with an even deeper probing. They would especially want to understand the nature of the Budget – whether it is a deficit or balanced budget-and more significantly, the growth projections in terms of GDP and revenues, as this would indicate how the economy is to grow, what are the sources of growth, and how the budget is to be financed. Government Ministries, Depart-ments and Agencies are interested because they want to know their respective allocation for the following year. Workers or wage earners will be interested to know what will happen to their income tax or if there will be any rebates, while companies anticipate a possible downward change in corporate taxes and so on. The general public are anxious to know whether the budget is ‘friendly’ and how it will ‘lessen their tax burden’ on their hard-earned income. Indeed, such is the importance of the Budget that it is not surprising at all why every citizen is interested. Of course, we all know that the multidimensional, multifaceted, multi-pronged objectives and multi-focused nature of the Budget carry both the public and private sector needs. Hence, the preparation has to be meticulous and thorough. And yet, despite all these efforts, there are times when we still need to resort to supplementary budgets and so forth.

A development budget will provide allocation for programmes and projects that will impact on growth and socio-economic transformation, while poverty eradication, environmental management, physical and social infrastructures, will be prominently featured, among others. In most cases, the development budget would relate closely with the Planning-Programming-Budgeting System (PPBS) . An operating budget is also necessary to cover for development and various administrative expenses for operational purposes.

The discussion here does not intend to dwell further on the subject of budgeting for development, operating or recurring expenditures, which can be very broad and all encompassing. Moreover, these issues are often very well analysed in the media, thus enabling the public to be “well-educated” on the process of budgeting and the nature of the budget itself. What this commentary intends to do is to consider another aspect of our budgeting which manifests because of our unconscious effort at times which can lead us to budget for wasteful, non-useful and non-productive activities. It is akin to “budgeting as a result of wastage, shoddiness, carelessness, and oversight”, or due to the fact that these activities are not in one’s radar screen, but which can impact on the annual budget. The quantum of such budget is in fact related to the concept of ‘opportunity costs’ in economics arising from activities that are not directly considered a budgetary item. Very often, these do recur and at a high opportunity cost. This can be triggered because at the planning stage, programmes and projects planned, conceptualized for implementation have not been sufficiently factored to take into account steps such as minimizing maintenance and operational costs, both in the physical and managerial sense.

Consider the case of roads which have been thought to be well planned, designed, and implemented, but still need to be repaired and maintained on a regular basis. While factors like the act of indiscriminate road users, or the harsh and unpredictable nature of climatic and environmental conditions may lead to faster wear and tear, the fact remains that road repairs and maintenance is still going to be high. The digging and re-digging of roads in urban areas to accommodate the repairs of telecommunications lines, water pipes and sundry are perennially recurring phenomenon that can lead to further wastage. Many buildings – public and private buildings – are designed and built, but often times, have to face high maintenance/repair and operations costs. Due to the poor level of maintenance and upkeep, even well designed buildings, because of its sorry state of untidiness, and poor maintenance, are eventually consigned to rapid deterioration and dilapidation. Many compounds of public buildings, which initially looked well-trimmed, beautifully-landscaped and act as a source of inspiration and congenial place of work after completion can, over time, look worn out. Thus, such unkempt buildings need to be rescued and spruced up by perhaps having a white wash, the replacement of old furniture with new ones complete with refreshing interior décor, and last but not least, the clearing, cleaning and landscaping of compounds and surroundings of the buildings. Stories like these often arise because of the lack of effort to maintain and clean our hard earned assets. And these examples are endless.

Why do these sorry state of affairs happen? Have we compromised on our image and our standard? Have we been lackadaisical? Are all these reminding us that we need to have a new mindset? Are things done so as not to last? Are things by nature temporary? Or are these just a passing phase? Are we complacent because we know we can always budget for maintenance expenditure? Whose job will it be to keep things cleaned, or assets to be well maintained? Do we need a special education to enable us to answer these questions? Are these our culture of doing things? Do we need a new paradigm?

This commentary has set out and raised a whole gamut of questions and we will not be giving an immediate and ready answer on any one of them. What is hoped is to remind all of us to be mindful of the implications of what we plan and implement. We can take either the ‘business-as-usual’ approach or the ‘business unusual’ way. Furthermore, this commentary in no way tells that merely by being mindful, we can totally resolve the problem and thus attain zero cost, and hence resulting in a zero budget for maintenance. What it means is to call for a new culture of care, a culture of mindfulness, a culture of loving public goods, a culture of putting public values at the forefront, and a culture of wanting to show the way. Let us therefore move away from this culture of contentment.

Of course, we will still be budgeting for operations and maintenance allocations, but these should be minimized to the barest minimum. Of course operations and maintenance budget can increase in absolute terms, because of the growing and increasing number of public facilities and amenities. Let this, however, increase at an arithmetic and not at a geometric progression. We can utilize the savings made for the creation and/or delivery of other public goods.

Furthermore, we recognize that things do not happen by themselves. It takes people to make things happen from the conceptualization phase right to its implementation stage. In the same manner, it takes people to administer and manage, plan and execute, govern and direct the programme so as to enable us to reduce our operation and maintenance cost, to reduce wastage, and to inculcate a new style of work. It is now left to us to prepare ourselves and to internalize these efforts in our process. Let us plan and budget for a new public service culture.