We need clarity, not confusion and red tape

 

Let’s say someone offers you RM10 million to market a truly awful, useless product.

In my line of work, there are two general ways to respond.

One, you can say: “Yes sir, yes sir, three bags full”, pocket the cash, do a little song and dance, and then ultimately blame the product when it fails to sell.

Two, you can say: “My professional view sir, is that you should take this RM10 million, and spend it on improving your product, instead of trying to pay people like me to try and sell something that is unsellable.”

In Budget 2021, one of the earliest controversies was about the revival of the Jasa unit.

Between 2011 and 2017, the BN government allocated somewhere between RM20 million and RM25 million annually for Jasa - a ‘communications’ unit that many considered to be a government propaganda arm.

Pakatan Harapan disbanded Jasa in 2018. This year, the government announced in its budget that Jasa will be revived with a budget of RM85.5 million, nearly four times the last allocation in 2017.

My professional view is that the government should take this RM85.5 million and spend it on improving their product, instead of trying to fund a feudal gravy train with the pretence of trying to sell unsellable products.

There’s no way someone like me will tell you that communications are not important or worth investing in. But I think even non-professionals can clearly see that the government is not investing its resources in the right type of communications.

We don’t need RM85.5 million being channelled to people who are just going to sing the praises of the ruling party from day to night while demonising the opposition. 

We do, however, need much, much more clarity about the never-ending stream of extremely confusing - and thus extremely frustrating - movement control order (MCO) policies.

No amount of money or spin can turn an unclear policy into a clear one. I am thus all for part of that RM85.5 million to be spent instead on anyone who can help our MCO policymakers for once in their lives be clear about the policies they are formulating (for the best nitpickers regarding structured clarity, I recommend lawyers or secondary school mathematics teachers).

Once that is done, you can spend another part of that RM85.5 million to hire the best graphic artists and copywriters to communicate those clear policies clearly to the people.

Let me give you a recent example regarding the lunacy surrounding the conditional MCO policies.

Two or four in a car?

One single online news article published comments from two government officials on the same day.

First, National Internal Security and Public Order Department director Abdul Rahim Jaafar said if four people in a family left the house in two cars containing two people each headed to the same destination, they will be fined RM1,000.

Second, in the institutional equivalent of ‘in the same breath’, Johor police chief Ayob Khan went in a completely different direction by saying that there was leeway in the two per car rule.

He said: “If the car is big and passengers in the car can observe physical distancing, then even four people are allowed. Everything is dependent on the situation. It is not a rigid rule.”

Is your head spinning yet? My head is spinning. It’s spinning about as hard as it did when it was announced that inter-district travel was banned, without any clear announcement whatsoever about which definition of ‘district’ was meant.

Abdul Rahim also had this to say: "If people are making their own interpretations of the standard operating procedures, then the CMCO would lose its effect."

This apparent criticism of everyday Malaysian citizens may seem all fine and well, but it appears that his own high-ranking police officer is the one ‘making their own interpretations’. Where does that leave the rest of us?

Not only does the government’s left hand not know what its right hand is doing - at this rate, we will have no idea how to avoid getting beaten by either hand at any given time!

It seems that the ‘standard’ part of the ‘standard operating procedures’ has been completely forgotten - maybe in favour of “semua orang pening”!

One of the most fundamental aspects of having laws, to begin with, is consistency. If the ruling authority is not clear about its laws and consistent in its implementation, then what we have is not the rule of law, but the law of the jungle.

Is there really a way to effectively and consistently catch families who have travelled out in two cars? If you are making a law in which 90 percent of offenders are likely to get away scot-free, then you have not made a very good law - or much of a law at all really.

You have instead just created a confusing policy which cannot be enforced effectively, confuses both implementing authorities and normal citizens, and creates unnecessary tension all around.

Perhaps if the people who ran the government spent less time and resources on how to stay in power via units like Jasa, and more time and effort in coming up with crystal clear MCO policies, we might do a lot better in our joint fight against Covid-19.

In this time of national crisis, the government should be focusing on helping Malaysians get through this together and facilitating and enabling Malaysians to help one another.

Instead, they seem to not only be befuddling their own confused attempts to manage the crisis but are also making it harder and harder for Malaysians to help each other.

Red tape

The Sabah state government - presiding over the state by far the worst hit by Covid-19 currently - now requires donors to give notice to the Deputy State Secretary’s Office (Administration) at least three days in advance before giving donations or assistance.

Donors from outside Sabah meanwhile will need to give a seven days’ advance notice.

What manner of insane, nonsensical, life-threatening, red tape is this?

Sabah is facing one of the worst crises it has ever faced. Is the government so insecure and so desperate to save face and show it is oh so big and strong and in control, that it is actually making it harder for Malaysians to help other Malaysians through this time of crisis?

This reminds me of the early days of the first MCO, where the similar bureaucratic red tape was imposed on NGOs, causing the complete waste of tons of food that some people were ready to donate to the needy.

This is not about political ideologies, or part of some useless, self-absorbed electoral long game.

This is about having the most basic administrative and humane qualities of a functioning government in a time of national crisis. Failure to function efficiently and compassionately in a time like this because of extremely narrow political self-interest and pride will literally cost lives.

So please, for the sake of our country and our lives - stop announcing confusing policies, stop being obsessed about your pride or how good you look, and most of all, stop making it harder and harder for Malaysians to help other Malaysians. 

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NATHANIEL TAN is a strategic communications consultant. He can be reached at nat@engage.my - Mkini

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of MMKtT.