Who do we blame for the bloated and deteriorating government bureaucracy in Malaysia? What explains our “bodek” culture? Is there hope we can fix things?

Our government bureaucracy is a vast presence that touches every Malaysian in almost every aspect of our lives, except perhaps in the bedroom. Though if you are a Muslim, it can touch you there too.

It’s a common complaint from coffee stalls to penthouses about how bad so many things are in our country. The truth is, in spite of dire predictions, we haven’t collapsed into a failed state – yet. But we also haven’t reversed our seemingly inexorable slide towards it either.

I’ve always been fascinated with how large human organisations work – or often, don’t work. I believe all such organisations are basically dysfunctional. They’re better described by the cartoons of Lat or Dilbert than by Harvard Business School or management gurus.

But what about some large organisations – corporates and governments alike – that do appear to be successful? It all depends on how success is defined. If it means meeting all its stated goals, and ultimately giving more value then what they cost, then those are a minority indeed. The rest merely survive.

The bureaucracy doesn’t face the pressures of day-to-day survival. Businesses can fail – we’ve seen plenty of that in the last year – yet governments don’t go bankrupt. Being able to print money, create debt or raise taxes anytime they want shields them from many of life’s harsh realities.

Apparently, there’s a new argument saying there’s a social responsibility to protect civil servants’ jobs. I find this argument insulting as I don’t remember anybody fighting to protect my parents’ rice bowls as they, and millions of others like them then and now, battled against poverty, calamities and a society stacked against them.

Why bother to take the initiative?

While the energy of a private company is often directed towards fighting the external competition, in a bureaucracy it’s often directed internally against its own members, or even against us, the public. The work stress in a bureaucracy isn’t about delivering results, but about staying on the right side of power.

After all, your superiors can reverse any decision you make regardless of logic or rationale – purely by having the power to do so. So why should anybody take the chance of showing initiative or being innovative or even working hard given the high risks but poor rewards?

It’s made worse by our society’s high power-distance culture, where the weak are willing to let the powerful walk all over them. That’s our “bodek” culture, and you see it in all other aspects of our lives too.

Did you know Malaysia has the world’s worst power-distance culture? No other nation comes close. And no, the Brits left over 60 years ago, and we can’t blame them for “bodek” any more, if it ever was their fault to start with. We own it, because we created it.

In a vast bureaucratic structure, rigid and harsh rules punish deviations – the nail that sticks out is hammered down. Not fair? Never mind, don’t complain, pay your dues and serve your time, and your turn will come when you can dish it out to others. The cycle continues.

The outdated reward and recognition system in a bureaucracy encourages loyalty and obedience – which is power-distance and “bodek” culture all over again. Performance and results are almost meaningless. It’s laughable to hear ministers talking about meeting 97.5% of their KPIs – do you see anything in Malaysia that is 97.5% good?

Dealing with the God factor

It’s hard enough to manage five people: it’s almost impossible to manage 500,000. The Malaysian bureaucracy – massive federal and state organisations co-existing and often competing with state-owned organisations such as GLCs, GICs and GLICs – is almost unmanageable.

Throw into this crazy mix many large, powerful federal- and state-level taxpayer-funded religious organisations accountable only to God, and you turn up the dysfunctionality dial to Maximum Total Havoc Habis.

Such a bureaucracy inevitably becomes political. Politics here, which I define as following a second but hidden and more powerful agenda, demands survival first and foremost. “Berkhidmat Untuk Negara” is the official agenda – but survival is the actual one. You can’t win if you are out of the game, so you survive at all costs.

Yes, there are exceptions. My passport was renewed in one hour on a Sunday morning – kudos to the immigration department. The tax people are uncannily efficient too. And there are always individuals who seem to care enough to serve. But nowadays they’re the exceptions rather than the norm.

Some nations succeed by keeping their bureaucracy small and highly accountable, and also by keeping it decentralised and constantly checking and balancing each other. And very crucially, they keep the government largely out of the business sector.

Nations such as Singapore, Norway and Japan seem to be doing a good job in keeping politics from infecting the bureaucracy. Their best and brightest seem to gravitate towards government service. They have issues but wouldn’t we love to exchange our issues with them?

Politics, politics, everywhere

In Malaysia, unfortunately, politics lurks everywhere and hides behind everything. The bureaucracy becomes heavily politicised and gets overwhelmed by the usual political diseases of sectarianism, racism, short-termism, and outright corruption.

What’s the solution? Bring in expensive Mat Salleh consultants and design new logos and play catchy patriotic songs on RTM? Been tried before, and even if you achieve 100% of these KPIs you’d still wouldn’t change anything.

Or what about something even more radical? Change the government! We tried that too, but unfortunately, we got too carried away with changing governments and we can’t seem to stop…

The current bureaucracy’s mess are the symptoms, and not the cause, of our society’s problems. They came about because of the bigger problems of loss of transparency, accountability, checks and balance, the unhealthy fixation on rights rather than responsibilities, the deteriorating education system, and the intrusion of race and religion into our public sphere.

Until these change, nothing else will.

When I asked an old man whom I admire why he worked in the government bureaucracy for so long, his answer was: the dignity of public service.

The man had served our beloved nation faithfully for many years. He retired with pride, though a little early and with some sadness and disappointment too. He could have gone further and done a lot more.

I can’t imagine there are many left who still see their role of serving their fellow citizens as having any dignity at all, apart from hoping to make it to retirement alive. That is such a shame.

But nevertheless, thank you, Mr. S, for finding dignity in your public service, and for sharing your dignity with us.

The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of FMT.