IT seems that each new government will conduct a study to determine the feasibility of projects initiated by the last. 

It will usually review purpose-formed agencies formed over the years by successive governments. 

At various ministries, we have offices and departments tasked with subsets of the ministers’ portfolio. We then have boards and councils, authorities and commissions supervising the work.

We’ve also formed government-run corporations to promote sports, agriculture, employment, technology and such. 

These pseudo-governmental bodies often straddle the ground between public and private endeavours.

All these bodies need to be funded, and in some cases, have turned out to be sinecures for politicians.

They also often overlap in function and role. You have half a dozen organisations promoting road safety, a few dozen overseeing agriculture and several more to fight drug abuse. 

Many also serve as a political platform, giving the minister something to do and somewhere to go when he or she needs to. 

Some, like TalentCorp, were built to circumnavigate the limitations of the government’s power to regulate industry salaries and operations. 

Others, like Pemandu in its original iteration, were built to improve the government’s delivery system. 

Pemadam and National Anti-Drugs Agency are both national organisations set up to combat drugs, with the latter now taking on an enforcement role, overlapping with the Customs and Narcotics branches of the police. 

These duties overlaps those of the Health, Youth and Sports and Education Ministries. 

We also have many old organisations, such as for agriculture and farming, which are redundant.

Recently, we’ve added entities for technology ventures and Industry 4.0. 

From Anwar Ibrahim’s government, we should see the establishment of new agencies for sustainable development and environmental protection (ESG). 

This could lead to redundancies as bodies such as Jabatan Alam Sekitar already exist. 

Duplication of work has resulted in these bodies drawing lines, which are incomprehensible to the public, or attempting to repurpose themselves, often treading on other agency’s areas in the process.

For example, an agricultural organisation may wish to work on poverty eradication while another, which purview is green energy, may start funding start-ups. 

Many of these bodies have built ecosystems and fiefdoms, unwilling to accept the fact that their time could have passed.

Keeping them around is a drain on national resources. These agencies are sitting on land banks, bank accounts and assets that could be better used elsewhere while wasting taxpayers’ money on overheads, including wages and pensions for workers. 

Ministers must have political will to identify and disband organisations that are no longer relevant.

The longer goal is to reform the government service to focus on quality instead of being the nation’s biggest employer. – January 11, 2023.

* Emmanuel Joseph firmly believes that Klang is the best place on Earth, and that motivated people can do far more good than any leader with motive.