ASEAN states overhauls civil services

ASEAN states overhauls civil services

SINGAPORE (AFP): ASEAN states are overhauling their civil services to cope with increasing public demand for honest government amid rapid economic development in southeast Asia, officials said yesterday.

Top civil servants from the regional grouping attending a meeting here to beef up government reforms said moves to boost civil service efficiency stemmed from the growing expectations of people who feel an honest and open government is their right.

"The public expects to be treated like valued customers -- and they should. Outdated ways of operating and serving the public must make ways for new modes of service delivery that will meet these expectations," said Singapore's civil service head Lee Ek Tieng.

ASEAN comprises Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam and will add Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar later this month.

Lee told senior ASEAN officials here the region's civil services must harness the potential of technology more effectively through new "public service initiatives."

Officials said among new ASEAN civil service initiatives was Malaysia's plan to set up "electronic kiosks" where information technology would be used in nearly all government dealings with the public.

"What is also encouraging is that these initiatives have come about not for reform's sake but because of the realization that we need to anticipate the opportunities and changes ahead in the regional environment," Lee said.

Corazon de Leon, chairman of the Philippine Civil Service Commission, said it was "the right of citizens to have an honest public service" and added the Philippines was actively decentralizing its government functions to boost efficiency.

Vietnam is also adopting public administration reforms following complaints by foreign investors of bureaucratic delays, said Do Quang Trung, chairman of Vietnam's government panel on organization and personnel.

Officials from Myanmar and Laos as well Australia, Canada, India, Japan, New Zealand and Russia are also attending as observers at the four-day civil service conference.

While new entrants Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar intend to eventually integrate their economies into ASEAN's regional free trade plan, there would be no integrated ASEAN civil service, officials said.

"The philosophy of our meetings is not a question of integrating our public services because we have recognized that the best we can do is to learn from the experience of one another," said Mazlan Ahmad, director-general of Malaysia's public services department.

Dhannanjaya Sunoto, director of the ASEAN bureau of cooperation and dialog relations, said the grouping would not have a special program to raise the level of civil services in Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar to those of the older members.

"However, we are advocating that individual member countries provide bilateral assistance to the new members and we are also asking our dialog partners to also assist," Dhannanjaya said.