New
Straits Times, 27 October, 2007.
By : Santha Oorjitham
KUALA LUMPUR: Until this year, filing taxes for Applied Consulting and Engineering Sdn Bhd used to take over a month.
"It involved stacks of paper and trips back and forth," said its president and chief executive officer Datuk Nicholas Zefferys.
This year, the process was done online and took only a few days.
"It's working!" exulted the past president of the American Malaysian Chamber of Commerce, who is one of the private sector members of the Special Task Force to Facilitate Business or Pemudah.
Co-chairman Datuk Yong Poh Kon is equally enthusiastic. As president of the Federation of Malaysian Manufacturers, he had also been part of the 40-member Malaysia Inc panel that brought the private sector and top civil servants together every four months.
But the 23-member Pemudah is "far superior", he said. It is a smaller, high-powered group that gathers every month, while working groups meet in between.
His co-chair, Chief Secretary Tan Sri Mohd Sidek Hassan, has shown full commitment and all the secretaries-general and heads of department attend each meeting, he said, whereas they had sent rotating representatives to Malaysia Inc.
Set up in February, Pemudah was tasked with facilitating business, overhauling unnecessary licensing and procedures, and reviewing outdated laws.
Their six-month progress report in August listed a string of improvements to the government delivery system, which have been welcomed by both local and foreign investors.
The Small and Medium Industries Association of Malaysia, for example, found that most of the wish list it compiled in May has been granted. Key performance indicators (KPIs) have improved the efficiency of the delivery system, its secretary-general Lee Teck Meng said.
Top on its list had been faster approvals. One of the first beneficiaries was Zefferys, whose stamp duty for buying a condominium was approved within a few days. "I'm told in the past, it could take weeks or months," he said.
SMIs, who make up almost 97 per cent of manufacturers in the country, had also asked for simpler immigration procedures. Lee himself was able to renew his passport within an hour. "The processing at the Immigration Department now is fantastic," he said.
The SMIs' request for an e-complaints system was also implemented, with the Chief Secretary, all secretaries-general and heads of departments giving email addresses to the public.
"Civil servants are now open to being called and emailed, with KPIs on response times," said Zefferys. "That's a major attitudinal shift."
And the SMI's wish for a one-stop centre handling all licences will be fulfilled early next year.
The Business Licensing Electronic Support Services (BLESS) will begin online approval and monitoring of applications for business licences from the manufacturing sector, followed by hotels later.
"We are happy. We hope improvements to the government delivery system will continue," said Lee.
Yong said the pace would not slacken. Pemudah has set up five focus groups to meet Malaysia's target of rising from No 24 to the top 10 on the World Bank's Doing Business ranking, "hopefully by 2010".
The groups will suggest ways to improve enforcement of contracts, tax payment, trading across borders, registering property and closing a business.
For example, Chua Tia Guan, head of the Associated Chinese Chambers of Commerce and Industry's economic survey unit, heads the focus group on paying tax and getting tax refunds. They will suggest ways to simplify sales tax, excise duties, Social Security Organisation and Employees Provident Fund contributions.
Statutory bodies will continue to improve their processes and facilities, Yong said. "For example, the Companies Commission of Malaysia in the near future will be able to offer a company's particulars electronically to other government departments. So we will no longer need to attach certified hard copies of Form 49, which lists the names of directors and shareholders."
The work of Pemudah "should not be a one-shot effort", said Zefferys. The mechanisms should be in place so that the "civil servants' mindset is one of continued improvement. Like the private sector, the civil service has to operate with a sense of urgency, cognisant of timelines and deadlines."
Foreign investors are already taking note of the improvements. Zefferys talked to three American companies considering investment in Malaysia recently. One of the companies had been here before and had withdrawn.
"I told them Malaysia is not only changing to an increasingly business-friendly environment, but that the government is committed to a policy of continual improvement towards being competitive."
They were excited about what they heard, he said, and are reconsidering their investment strategies. |
|
