| STATE
SECRETARY'S VIEW |
 |
| Tan Sri
Datuk Amar Hj Hamid Bugo |
MANAGING
OUR ASSETS
Where do we draw the line
between the governments assets and the private sector assets.
Is there a clear line of
distinction between the two? Buildings, amenities, parks and recreational grounds,
vehicular transport, the list goes on.
These are some of our assets
which make up the total of what we own. Who owns what?
Should a distinction be
made between government assets and private-sector assets?
From the government's perspective,
it is a very expensive mistake to make a distinction between government assets
and private-sector assets.
Even though, operationally,
the distinction is very useful, so that we can understand who owns what, but
if we look at these assets in the proper perspective, it can be disastrous.
This is because unless you
believe that the government assets is also in fact the private sector's asset
and vice versa, you're going off-tangent in terms of asset management.
Unfortunately, this is the
tendency for many people to believe especially in a state like Sarawak. Itu
kerajaan punya, tidak apalah! Nobody cares as long as they think that the
particulars asset is the government's.
Examples are where people
damage propertise like public telephones, toilets, etc. Somehow they do not
relate that the money spent by the govt for these amenities have been collected
by the government from the private sector, from you and I for the purpose of
delivering goods and services back to the individuals.
And we keep on making a
distinction between government and private, even though, in actual fact the
government is purely the cutodian of whatever asset there is in the country
and the private sector is actually the effective and eventual owners!
This dichotomy in our mindest
is unhealthy and has got to be changed. As long as there is this conflict of
understanding on ownership of assets, it will be quite impossible for us to
form strategic long term planning for our state.
Unless we can see holistically
the assets that we have, we are not able to consider the consept of sustainnability.
Take for example supplying water for drinking.
If we concentrate on our
programme of supplying water only for drinking and not think about where and
how such water is available, not only for drinking but for some other purpose,
then we will niot to be able to achieve any stratgic planning at all.
Whatever plans we have will
be shortlived - even though we may have that quantity of water, we may not have
the desired quality; we may have supply of water for the next 5 to 10 years,
but there may not be sufficient supply for the next 20 to 30 years; there may
be water for drinking; but not enough water for other purposes.
Therefore the formula for
success is to have the vision of what assets are in relation to other programmes
for the development and translate this vision into strategic plans to allow
for the proper strategic decision making.
Then we have to produce
bussines and management planning where we will take into consideration accountability
to make it easy to refer those planning in case there is a need to do so later
on.
Sustainability depend upon
accountability in any strategic planning and programmes and the best way to
achieve these programmes of asset management is to have a smart alliance between
the private sector and the public sector - total strategic planning through
the alliance of the private and public sector for the benefit of Sarawak.
|
