When the Whole Nation Is Responsible, Who Is Accountable?

  

When unemployment is everyone’s responsibility, who answers for the young Bruneian still waiting? Job fairs offer hope. Employers demand experience. Policies promise progress. But where does shared responsibility become measurable accountability? A nation cannot build its future on applications alone. Someone must explain why opportunity keeps arriving as another announcement.

 

KOPITALK WITH MHO

When the Whole Nation Is Responsible, Who Is Accountable?

By Malai Hassan Othman

 

Brunei's unemployment problem has survived years of career fairs, manpower programmes, policy reviews and repeated appeals for a whole-of-nation approach. Yet the latest official figures suggest that what remains in short supply is not discussion, but measurable results.

Unemployment rose from 4.7 per cent in 2024 to 5.0 per cent in 2025, leaving approximately 11,600 people without work. Among those aged 18 to 24, unemployment stood at 18 per cent.

These figures were disclosed by Home Affairs Minister and Coordinating Minister for Social and Manpower Policies Dato Seri Setia Awang Haji Ahmaddin bin Haji Abdul Rahman during a Muzakarah session with Legislative Council members on October 26.

His willingness to acknowledge disappointing employment outcomes deserves recognition. So does his concern about inadequate wages and the difficulties young Bruneians face in securing their first employment opportunity.

After years of strategies, committees and initiatives, are we addressing the causes of unemployment or becoming increasingly efficient at administering its consequences?

When attendance becomes the story

One revealing disclosure concerned employment-matching sessions organised through Pusat Pekerjaan Brunei (JobCentre Brunei).

The minister reported that 4,026 jobseekers had been notified of matching opportunities. Of 124 candidates scheduled or called to attend, only 37 turned up.

It certainly was. But disappointment is not a diagnosis.

The absence of 87 candidates tells us what happened. It tells us almost nothing about why.

Were they given adequate notice? Were jobs suitable, and pay and conditions disclosed? Did transport or family responsibilities intervene?

And why were only 124 candidates scheduled or called when notifications reportedly reached 4,026 jobseekers?

Jobseekers certainly have responsibilities. They must demonstrate initiative, discipline and willingness to consider realistic opportunities.

But public employment agencies have an equally important responsibility to understand why their interventions produce disappointing responses.

The causes may involve candidate attitudes, unsuitable vacancies or shortcomings in employment matching.

A structured follow-up study, including feedback from absent candidates, is needed.

Otherwise, poor attendance risks becoming an explanation for unemployment when it may also be a symptom of weaknesses within the employment system.

Then there is the relationship between local recruitment requirements and permission to employ foreign workers.

Under the government's published procedures, employers seeking foreign manpower must first advertise vacancies through JobCentre Brunei, allowing local candidates an opportunity to apply.

Where locals apply, employers are given additional time to conduct recruitment procedures before proceeding through the relevant approval process.

Who verifies rejection reasons and whether selection criteria are reasonable?

Could personal networks or nationality-based preferences sometimes influence recruitment, particularly where local applicants are rejected and overseas candidates subsequently fill similar positions?

Such concerns require evidence. A recruiting officer’s nationality does not prove bias, and employers must be free to select competent workers.

But recruitment decisions should withstand reasonable scrutiny, particularly when local applicants are rejected and foreign workers subsequently occupy similar positions.

Were rejections documented and successful candidates demonstrably better qualified?

A job advertisement should represent a genuine opportunity for local employment, not merely a procedural requirement preceding foreign recruitment.

Brunei needs foreign workers where genuine labour shortages or specialist requirements exist. But local-first safeguards must be credible and enforced.

At Jelajah Kerjaya 2025, 1,682 vacancies attracted 15,080 visitors. Only 535 Bruneians reportedly secured private-sector employment, equivalent to 31.8 per cent of advertised vacancies.

The latest Jelajah Kerjaya attracted 11,085 visitors for 1,448 vacancies. Placement outcomes were still being monitored.

Such initiatives are useful. But organising successful events and delivering successful employment outcomes are not the same thing.

How many recruits stayed employed after a year, and at what wages?

A crowded career fair may produce an impressive photograph. A vacancy filled may produce a favourable statistic. Neither proves that a lasting career has been created.

Employment itself does not always guarantee economic security.

The minister revealed that more than 5,600 local workers earned less than BND500 monthly, including 345 individuals holding bachelor's degrees or higher qualifications.

The minimum-wage rules cover specified sectors and employment arrangements, so not every salary below BND500 necessarily breaches them.

A graduate earning less than BND500 may have escaped the unemployment statistics. Whether that individual has escaped economic hardship is another matter.

Brunei must confront unemployment and underemployment together.

Procurement and the national interest

Much public discussion revolves around persuading employers to recruit more Bruneians and encouraging jobseekers to improve their employability.

Both objectives are legitimate. Neither fully addresses where sufficient new employment opportunities will come from.

Businesses cannot sustainably recruit without demand, investment and confidence.

Training improves employability; it does not create demand for labour.

Public policy influences investment, diversification, regulation, infrastructure and business costs.

When employment opportunities remain limited, the question cannot rest solely on whether jobseekers are sufficiently adaptable or employers sufficiently cooperative.

It must also examine whether the economic environment is generating enough opportunities.

Part of that examination must turn inward. Concerns about slow approvals, overlapping requirements and poor coordination deserve scrutiny. Where such obstacles delay business expansion, employment opportunities may also be postponed. Removing unnecessary red tape may be among the least expensive ways to enable job creation.

The minister cited more than 80,000 foreign workers in the private sector as a possible avenue for gradual localisation.

Training, workforce planning and succession programmes can realise some of those opportunities.

Yet that number cannot be treated as 80,000 immediately available jobs for Bruneians.

Occupational requirements, experience, wages and business needs differ considerably.

Localisation can address some gaps; expanding productive industries addresses the larger challenge.

Government, GLCs, SOEs and major operators, including Brunei Shell Petroleum and associated organisations, shape livelihoods through their contracting decisions.

CAPEX, OPEX and commercial performance matter. But so does workforce development.

When immediate cost dominates, contractors can face pressure to suppress wages and training expenditure.

Whether existing procurement arrangements adequately balance commercial efficiency with workforce development remains an open question.

A cheaper contract may be poor national value if savings undermine employment continuity, skills and experienced local workers.

When a service contract changes hands, experienced employees performing the same work can suddenly face uncertain employment.

Shouldn't their experience and employment continuity receive reasonable consideration alongside the commercial terms?

Responsible procurement need not guarantee jobs regardless of performance. It should recognise human capital as part of national development.

Government-linked companies and state-owned enterprises warrant a closer look.

Publicly owned or influenced enterprises must fulfil commercial mandates, but their national development contribution also merits scrutiny.

How many meaningful jobs and routes into specialist or managerial positions do they create for Bruneians?

Do their contractors support training, local retention and skills transfer?

The answers will differ according to each organisation's ownership structure and mandate.

Nevertheless, their performance should form part of any credible assessment of national employment policy.

A whole-of-nation strategy cannot rely on private employers while leaving public investment, ownership and procurement unexamined.

Beyond the familiar appeal

A whole-of-nation approach is reasonable. Unemployment cannot be resolved by one ministry acting alone.

Government agencies, businesses, educational institutions, communities and jobseekers all have responsibilities.

Shared responsibility demands assigned duties, coordinated policies, measurable objectives and public reporting.

Who is responsible for generating employment demand? Who verifies fair recruitment? Who monitors retention, wages and career progression?

And who is accountable when programmes repeatedly fall short?

The minister himself called for targeted manpower planning, fair reward and effective worker protection.

The principles are therefore familiar.

What the public needs now is clearer evidence of implementation.

Perhaps the next employment discussion should begin with a report card: what was promised, achieved or missed, and what will change?

Nobody expects unemployment to disappear overnight. Global uncertainty, structural challenges and a small domestic market are genuine constraints.

But recognising those constraints should strengthen the determination to measure results, not diminish the obligation to explain them.

Government cannot employ everybody, but must lead an economic strategy that allows productive employment to expand.

A whole-of-nation approach should mean every relevant institution contributes towards a common objective.

It should never mean responsibility becomes so widely distributed that accountability disappears.

After all, the unemployed are not waiting for another committee to agree that unemployment is a serious problem.

They are waiting for opportunities to build a future.

Perhaps it is time we stopped measuring how often the nation discusses that future and started asking how many people can actually see one.

 

Malai Hassan Othman is a veteran journalist, columnist and policy advisor based in Brunei Darussalam.

A Map Without Clear Milestones

Cybercriminals have already cost Bruneians millions. But what happens when the next target is not your bank account, but the nation’s essential services? Brunei has cybersecurity laws, institutions and strategies. Are they keeping pace with evolving threats? In matters of national security and sovereignty, can we afford to discover weaknesses too late?

 

Brunei’s cyber threats are evolving. Its national strategy carries conflicting timetables, while the public has yet to receive a clear accounting of key readiness commitments.

By Malai Hassan Othman

KopiTalk with MHO | Part Two of Two: The Road Knows Where You Live

 

Cybercriminals have already taken millions of dollars from Bruneians. The money has gone through online scams, impersonation and other forms of digital deception, often beyond any hope of recovery.

 

In June 2025, the then Minister of Transport and Infocommunications, Yang Berhormat Pengiran Dato Seri Setia Shamhary bin Pengiran Dato Paduka Haji Mustapha, disclosed that online scams had cost victims BND12.2 million over three years.

 

The losses have continued. Between 10 March and 7 May this year, the Royal Brunei Police Force investigated 193 fraud cases involving BND1.85 million during Operation FRONTIER+ III, a Singapore-led crackdown on transnational scam networks.

 

Fourteen people were arrested locally. The cases ranged from impersonation of government officials to e-commerce fraud, social media impersonation and loan scams.

 

The two sets of figures cover different periods and should not be added together. Behind both are families whose savings and whose trust in digital services have been shaken.

 

The authorities have not stood still. Police investigations, awareness campaigns, telecommunications safeguards and cross-border operations all show sustained effort.

 

Yet the losses pose an awkward question. Are our defences stopping criminals, or are we simply getting better at counting the damage after the money has gone?

 

Scams are the threat Bruneians can see. The harder test is whether the country is prepared for the threats it cannot see.

 

The first part of this essay began with Malaysia’s decision to bar its civil servants from using Waze. The concern there was not theft but observation: the quiet record of where officials go, how often and when.

 

A phone or connected car can build that record without any system being hacked. Brunei has not publicly set out a distinct framework for managing the security implications of such commercial location data.

 

Observation is not the only risk. Brunei’s own National Cyber Security Strategy warns that state-sponsored actors are targeting critical information infrastructure, the systems behind energy, water, banking, healthcare and government.

 

The strategy cites a regional example. In 2022, a group known as Dark Pink, documented by the security firm Group-IB, attacked government and military bodies in Southeast Asia, including a Malaysian military body.

 

In a compact country, a serious disruption to one essential service could quickly reach others. That is a reason for preparation, not a claim that any system here has been compromised.

 

The warning has come from the very top. In his titah on the 35th National Day in 2019, His Majesty Sultan Haji Hassanal Bolkiah Mu’izzaddin Waddaulah ibni Al-Marhum Sultan Haji Omar ’Ali Saifuddien Sa’adul Khairi Waddien, Sultan and Yang Di-Pertuan of Brunei Darussalam, stressed that cyber security must be given special attention.

 

His Majesty cautioned that the negative effects of the cyber world could seep into the nation, society and the family.

 

Much has followed. Cyber Security Brunei was established in 2020. The Cybersecurity Act provides protections for designated critical systems, while the Personal Data Protection Order 2025 regulates personal data handled by organisations within its scope.

 

In September, Cyber Security Brunei released Version 2.0 of its Code of Practice for critical information infrastructure, adding clauses on artificial intelligence security and secure-by-design principles.

 

At the CySec 2026 conference that month, the Minister of Transport and Infocommunications, Yang Berhormat Dato Seri Setia Mohd Riza bin Dato Paduka Haji Mohd Yunos, gave the keynote address.

 

“Resilience must therefore be incorporated from the outset,” he said, covering how systems are designed, bought, developed, deployed and run. It was the right message, and a demanding one.

 

The difficulty lies with the document meant to guide all this. The national strategy, published in August 2023, carries the dates 2023–2027 on its cover.

 

Inside, its executive summary sets its objectives “within the 2022-2026 period”. Its implementation chapter is plainer still: the strategy “shall then be implemented for 5 years from 2022 to 2026”.

 

Cyber Security Brunei identifies 2023–2027 as the official period. The earlier dates in the published text do not establish a 2026 expiry, but they leave an avoidable ambiguity about the implementation timetable.

 

The world around the strategy has also moved. It was aligned with the Digital Economy Masterplan 2025, which has since been succeeded by Digital Brunei 2030.

 

The minister who signed its foreword now leads another ministry. His successor told a digital conference in August that Brunei must shift from planning to execution.

 

The threats have shifted too. The strategy’s threat chapter gives substantial attention to scams, ransomware, phishing and hijacked social media accounts.

 

Artificial intelligence is not addressed in it, though the updated Code of Practice has since begun to fill that gap. Nor does it set out a distinct approach to connected vehicles or commercial location data.

 

The strategy describes itself as a live document, to be revised at regular intervals. Its broad risk-management principles remain relevant even as technologies and threats change.

 

A new digital plan, an updated Code of Practice and the conflicting dates in the published strategy make this an appropriate moment to clarify milestones and review emerging risks.

 

The strategy also made promises that can be measured. It committed to a National Cyber Security Maturity Assessment, and to mechanisms providing “ongoing visibility” of progress towards its objectives.

 

No published findings could be located. Has the assessment been completed? What gaps did it identify, and which have since been closed?

 

Some findings must stay confidential. No country publishes a map of its own weak points, and none should.

 

But a progress report need not reveal vulnerabilities. It can state which assessments were carried out, which capabilities were strengthened and which priorities remain open.

 

A refreshed strategy could clarify its timetable, align implementation milestones with Digital Brunei 2030 and explain how progress will be measured.

 

An annual public update could identify completed assessments, strengthened capabilities and priorities still outstanding without disclosing sensitive technical details.

 

The strategy could also address connected vehicles and commercial location data more directly, building on recent measures covering artificial intelligence and secure-by-design principles.

 

And the response to scams could be measured not only by arrests, but also by attempted fraudulent transfers stopped before victims lose their money.

The scammers have already shown what happens when individuals are exposed. Their victims discovered the limits of their defences by losing their savings.

 

A nation should not discover its limits the same way. A strategy is a map for the road ahead. It serves the nation only when its milestones are clear, and when someone can show how far along the road we have come.

 

The Road Knows Where You Live

Your phone knows where you go. Your car may know too. But who keeps those records, and where do they end up? Malaysia’s Waze ban raises uncomfortable questions for Brunei. In an age of connected vehicles and invisible data trails, are we surrendering our privacy in exchange for convenience?

Malaysia has barred its civil servants from using Waze. For Brunei, which depends heavily on imported vehicles and foreign-developed navigation systems, the question runs deeper.

By Malai Hassan Othman

KopiTalk with MHO | 22 October 2026 | Part One of Two

Imagine a government officer leaving his home in Kiulap at seven in the morning. He drops his children at school, drives to his ministry, and in the afternoon visits an installation he does not discuss with friends.

His phone may record the route. So may his car.

Nobody needs to hack anything or steal a document. Such records can be created simply because a journey happened, and because the technology was designed to remember it.

On Tuesday, 20 October, Malaysia’s National Cyber Security Committee, chaired by Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, decided to bar civil servants from using Waze. The Chief Secretary to the Government, Shamsul Azri Abu Bakar, conveyed the directive the same day.

A follow-up guidance document clarified that the ban covers official duties only. Officers were still encouraged to uninstall the application, and the Prime Minister’s Department advised all Malaysians to switch to local alternatives.

Its preferred alternative is TuJu, a navigation application developed by the Malaysian Highway Authority.

The stated reason was data. Waze was developed in Israel before Google bought it in 2013, and its privacy policy identifies Waze Mobile Ltd as operating under Israeli law.

What has not been publicly established is that Israeli intelligence has received Malaysian users’ location data. Malaysia acted on risk, not proof, as governments are entitled to do.

Malaysian MPs have since sought clarification on the risks posed by other applications. That question deserves an answer in Brunei too, because it reaches well beyond one application and one country.

Location data is rarely secret one point at a time. Its value lies in repetition. A car leaving the same house each morning and parking at the same building reveals a home, a workplace and a routine.

For an ordinary motorist, that is a privacy matter. For an officer with access to sensitive installations, or the driver of a senior official, it becomes a security matter.

This is not theory. In 2016, computer scientists at the University of California, Santa Barbara, showed that fake Waze accounts could track real users and plant false traffic jams.

In 2020, another researcher found that data exposed on Waze’s Live Map could allow individual drivers to be followed. Both weaknesses were reportedly fixed.

In 2018, the fitness application Strava published a global heatmap of its users’ runs. Analysts soon spotted the outlines of military bases, traced by soldiers jogging the same routes every morning.

None of these cases established the involvement of any intelligence agency. Each showed how ordinary movement data becomes sensitive once enough of it is gathered in one place.

Malaysia’s ban concerns an application a driver chooses to open. But a growing number of cars on Brunei’s roads no longer wait to be asked.

Some newer models come with built-in navigation, mobile connectivity and a companion application. Depending on the model and its settings, a vehicle may send location data to the manufacturer or its service providers.

In 2023, the Mozilla Foundation reviewed the privacy practices of 25 car brands, including Toyota, Ford and Volkswagen. Every one failed. Mozilla called cars the worst product category it had ever reviewed for privacy.

Governments have taken note. In 2021, China’s military barred Tesla vehicles from its complexes over concerns about their cameras. Some Chinese government offices later told staff not to park Teslas inside.

In January 2025, the United States finalised restrictions on specified connected-vehicle software and hardware linked to China or Russia, with software restrictions beginning in model year 2027 and hardware restrictions generally following in model year 2030.

The pattern is worth noticing. China worries about American cars. America worries about Chinese cars. Malaysia worries about an Israeli-linked application. Each fears data flowing into another country’s jurisdiction.

Brunei’s position is different from all three. We import the cars we drive and depend heavily on foreign-developed systems that guide them. Our vehicles come from Japan, Korea, Europe, China and elsewhere.

Larger countries may have greater room to exclude suppliers by nationality. For a small country buying from many markets, replacing one supplier may simply mean depending on another.

That leaves Brunei with a harder choice. It cannot always choose where the technology originates. It can seek to determine the terms on which those products operate here.

Brunei is not without foundations. In his titah on the 35th National Day in 2019, His Majesty Sultan Haji Hassanal Bolkiah Mu’izzaddin Waddaulah ibni Al-Marhum Sultan Haji Omar ’Ali Saifuddien Sa’adul Khairi Waddien, Sultan and Yang Di-Pertuan of Brunei Darussalam, stressed that cyber security must be given special attention.

His Majesty cautioned that the negative effects of the cyber world could seep into the nation, society and the family. Cyber Security Brunei was established the following year.

Since then, Brunei has enacted the Cybersecurity Act and published a National Cyber Security Strategy. On 1 January this year, the main provisions of the Personal Data Protection Order 2025 came into force.

These are significant achievements. Yet the published frameworks do not set out a distinct approach to the security implications of location data routinely gathered by navigation applications and connected vehicles.

The national strategy’s threat chapter gives considerable attention to scams, ransomware, phishing and hijacked social media accounts, among the incidents reported here. It does not set out specific guidance on connected vehicles and commercial location data.

The personal data law primarily regulates private-sector organisations rather than government agencies. Its obligations may apply to personal location records within its scope, but cross-border processing and enforcement raise practical questions.

Brunei has the frameworks. What remains unclear publicly is how they address the questions Malaysia has just raised.

Closing that gap need not mean banning anything. It means setting out what officers, agencies and companies are expected to do, before an incident makes the decision for us.

First, officers who handle sensitive work, or visit sensitive sites, should have clear guidance on navigation applications and location settings during official duties. Most of the risk lies in habits, not hardware.

Second, government vehicle purchases could require suppliers to disclose any connected services and to allow location tracking to be switched off. Procurement is where a small buyer has real leverage.

Third, the relevant authorities, including the Authority for Info-communications Technology Industry (AITI), could seek clearer disclosures from car distributors and application providers about their handling of Bruneians’ location data.

Fourth, the next revision of the national strategy, which describes itself as a live document, could address connected vehicles and the wider Internet of Things directly.

Fifth, public awareness campaigns, already strong on scams and passwords, could carry one more simple message: your phone and your car may remember where you have been.

Not every measure requires substantial expenditure. Much begins with asking the right questions early, rather than answering them under pressure.

Consistency matters too. If Waze deserves scrutiny, so do Google Maps, Apple Maps, ride-hailing services, fitness trackers and connected cars. They differ in ownership, law and safeguards, and should be judged on those differences.

Local ownership is no shortcut either. A home-grown application gives a government more oversight, but it still needs independent testing, clear retention limits and honest privacy terms.

For ordinary motorists, the first steps are modest. Check which applications can see your location at all times. Open your car’s companion application and read its data settings. Ask the dealer what the car sends home.

The officer we imagined in Kiulap drives home tonight the way he always does. Depending on his settings, his phone may log the route. His car may do so too.

Somewhere, on a server he will never see, in a country he may never visit, the journey may be kept long after he has parked.

A nation that depends on others to guide its journeys must at least have a say in who keeps the record of where its people have been.

 

The Cost of Waiting

Thirty years after TPOR promised clearer service standards, how do we measure delivery? A pending application is not necessarily overdue. But when deadlines slip, wages, rent and household bills keep arriving. Who counts that cost, who explains the delay, and can the public see whether those promises are being kept?

Thirty years after TPOR, how do we measure the promise?

KopiTalk with MHO

By Malai Hassan Othman

Forty-five calendar days. That is the Ministry of Religious Affairs’ published commitment for a halal certificate or permit, set after complaints of waits once estimated at between two months and two years.

For the owner of a new restaurant, those days are not an abstraction. The lease has started, the cook has been hired, and the menus are printed. The certificate is not yet on the wall.

Rent falls due at the start of the month and wages at the end of it. Customers who look for the certificate before sitting down quietly take their business elsewhere.

Government counts processing time on a calendar. The person waiting counts it in wages due, savings drawn down, repeated journeys and opportunities that will not stay open indefinitely.

Waiting has a cost. The question is whether our systems recognise who carries it.

Brunei recognised the importance of timely service long ago. Introduced in 1995, Tekad Pemedulian Orang Ramai, or TPOR, set out written commitments on the services government agencies would deliver.

The principle was simple. People should know what service to expect, and departments should be held to what they publish.

The framework grew beyond written promises. TPOR auditing began in 2003. In 2015, the Public Sector Performance Grading Programme Through Star Rating, known as 3PSA, broadened the assessment.

The Management Services Department’s assessment covers TPOR achievement, complaint resolution and customer satisfaction. Assessed agencies must agree on findings, recommendations and dates for putting matters right.

So the machinery for checking delivery exists. What matters is what it finds, and whether the public ever sees the results.

The most detailed recent results I could find were not in a regular public report. They surfaced in the Legislative Council in March 2025, when Yang Berhormat Dayang Hajah Safiah binti Sheikh Haji Abd. Salam questioned a decline in 3PSA results.

The reply was candid. Of 48 agencies assessed up to the 2023/2024 financial year, two received four stars, six received three and fourteen received two.

The remaining 26, more than half, received one star, the rating that signals improvement is needed. Weak strategic planning, poor use of staff and thin use of data were among the reasons given.

These are ratings of whole organisations, not counts of missed deadlines. But they show where the system knows it is weak, and the public heard them only because a member asked.

The halal counter offers a closer view. Between January and July 2026, the ministry received 1,004 applications for halal certificates and permits. By August, 614 had been approved, and 122 were still being processed.

Another 150 had moved beyond the department and were awaiting a decision by the Brunei Islamic Religious Council. That is about one application in seven, waiting somewhere other than the counter where it began.

For the restaurant owner, the department’s deadline and the final decision are two different things. Only the second allows the business to open its doors with confidence.

Pending is not the same as overdue. Without the age of each case, no one outside the system can tell which of the 150 are routine and which have waited too long.

Measurement is possible when a service chooses it. In 2025, 85 per cent of approved business name and company registrations met their one-day TPOR, a figure reported to the Council in August 2026.

What is missing is not the ability to measure. It is a regular public account across services, published whether or not anyone thinks to ask.

The cost of waiting is sharpest where public money is owed. In August 2026, Yang Berhormat Dato Seri Setia Awang Haji Muhammad Juanda bin Haji Abdul Rashid, Minister of Development, addressed delays in development projects and payments.

The Minister said contractor and consultant claims were monitored according to TPOR and financial procedures. He named incomplete or incorrect claims, and the time needed to verify work, as causes of delay.

He also pointed to coordination, officers’ competence in processing claims and the use of TAFIS 2.0, the government’s financial management system.

That explanation deserves to be taken seriously. Public money must be protected, work checked and payment properly authorised. A claim that needs correcting cannot be paid as if it were complete.

But it also points to questions that can be measured. How quickly is an incomplete claim identified? How promptly is the claimant told exactly what needs correcting?

Once the documents and verification are complete, how much longer does payment take? When several offices are involved, who follows the claim through to the end?

The answers would separate time needed for scrutiny from time lost between desks, and show where improvement is needed without assuming every delay has the same cause.

For a small contractor, the distinction is practical. While a claim moves through the system, wages, rent and supplier bills keep arriving on schedule.

An organisation’s processing time becomes someone else’s financing burden. A contractor may draw on reserves, borrow or delay paying suppliers, and the wait travels down the chain.

A supplier paid late may pay his own workers late. One claim resting on one desk can be felt in households that have never heard of TPOR.

A published deadline should help people plan. For that, its meaning must be clear: when the clock starts, what it covers and what can legitimately pause it.

An acknowledgement, the completion of one internal stage and a final decision are different achievements. A department can meet its own deadline while the applicant keeps waiting elsewhere.

For services that pass through several agencies, the whole journey should be measured alongside each stage. The applicant needs to know when the matter is actually resolved.

Reporting should also count unfinished work. A percentage completed on time means more when published beside the number of cases still open and how long they have waited.

Otherwise, completed cases can hide the position of those still waiting. Reporting both would show whether a strong completion rate sits alongside a stubborn backlog.

Digital systems can make progress visible. Where practicable, applicants should see receipt, outstanding requirements, the responsible unit and the next expected step.

A reference number identifies a case. Its value comes when it also leads to a meaningful update, sparing people repeated calls and visits.

The need reaches beyond processing deadlines. As of 9 July 2026, 1,092 civil servants were on the government housing waiting list, with average waits of one to four years.

Limited supply, applicants’ preferences and repairs explain much of that wait. A proposal for online queue tracking, welcomed in the Council, would at least let each applicant see where they stand.

There must still be a person to ask. A service cannot rely entirely on an applicant’s ability to navigate a website or decode an unexplained status message.

When a deadline slips, communication matters most. An explanation, a revised date and a route for review give the person waiting something concrete to act on.

Clear requirements and escalation procedures help officers too. They reveal whether a delay comes from missing information, thin staffing, unclear authority or an unnecessary step.

The remedy should follow the evidence. A staffing bottleneck needs a different answer from an avoidable referral, or from repeated failure to act on a complete submission.

Making applications, seeking information and resolving problems are where most people meet their government. It is at those counters, more than in annual plans, that public confidence is won or lost.

A short, regular account could state each standard, performance against it, outstanding workload and action taken where results fall short, with allowance for differences in case complexity.

It would credit departments that perform well, explain persistent difficulties and show whether corrective measures work. It would give the public firmer ground than blanket reassurance or sweeping criticism.

A refusal at least lets the restaurant owner decide what to do next. An unexplained wait leaves the owner unable to open, unsure whether to persist or start again.

Bruneians can reasonably be asked for patience where proper scrutiny requires time. Government agencies can equally be asked to show how that time is used.

Patience may be a virtue. It should never be mistaken for an unlimited line of credit.