Najib claims NBOS a success, takes swipe at opposition

The implementation of the National Blue Ocean Strategy (NBOS) programme has been remarkably successful in providing the best services to the people at optimum spending.

Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak said NBOS, which assembled over 80 government agencies, is also aimed at breaking walls between the ministries, departments, and agencies that typically practiced separate services.

The multi-agency collaboration said Najib enabled the people to enjoy the best services that focused on three main elements that are of high impact, being implemented quickly and cost-saving for the government.

“For example, in NBOS, we have implemented UTC (Urban Transformation Centres) that are implemented in 20 locations, including in Kuantan and I am told that 51 million customers have used this service and, out of that, 5.9 million are at Kuantan UTC.

“What is unique is this UTC is able to save government expenditure of up to RM2 billion because we gathered all the services under one roof and this situation is profitable to us,” he said when opening the NBOS Fiesta with the community at Kampung Baru Salong in Pekan today.

The ceremony was also attended by Rural and Regional Development Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob and Treasury secretary-general Mohd Irwan Serigar Abdullah.

Najib, who is also Pekan member of parliament, said NBOS is a unique programme that was not available in other countries in the world when it offered services until 10 pm daily except on public holidays.

On the NBOS Fiesta, Najib described the event, is for the first time, as proof that the opposition’s claims the government was bankrupt were inaccurate.

"It is not that we don’t have money, we bring the various agencies to the people, including in the rural areas due to the good outcome. We will hold more such fiestas in other places.

“We want to go to the ground and meet with the people because the opposition made all kinds of baseless accusations which we have to clarify that we are doing this for the people,” he said.

Najib said the use of the word Fiesta, derived from the Spanish word for festival, also meant the leisure programme was being held for the people to enjoy the services provided by the government.

This was in line with the programmes being lined-up until this afternoon such as the Mobile Community Transformation Centre that brought government services directly to the people besides offering price discounts on essential goods of between five to 20 percent, he said.

Najib added that the government was also mulling the idea of promoting NBOS vehicle registration numbers in future.
Earlier Mohd Irwan Serigar, in his welcoming speech, said the Mobile CTC programme has been implemented in 341 rural areas nationwide.

- Bernama