Facing the Right Direction — But Where Is the Heart Going?

We know where to turn our faces in prayer. But when the prayer mat is folded, does faith still guide our words, promises, generosity and conduct? Surah Al-Baqarah 2:177 asks a quieter, deeper question: is the heart—and the life—travelling towards the same destination? The answer may unsettle us.

KOPITALK JIWA – JOURNEY OF THE HEART

Reflections on Surah Al-Baqarah, Ayat 177

A few mornings ago, a friend sent me a photograph through WhatsApp.

There was no lengthy explanation. No accompanying lecture. Just a photographed page of the Qur’an, with several lines marked in green.

My eyes rested on the opening words of Surah Al-Baqarah, ayat 177:

“Righteousness is not merely turning your faces towards the east or the west.”

I read the words once.

Then again.

At first, I thought the ayat was speaking about direction — the east and the west, Jerusalem and Makkah, and the qiblah towards which believers turn in prayer.

But the longer I remained with it, the more personal it became.

It seemed to be asking me another question.

Not merely:

Which direction does your face turn?

But:

Which direction is your life travelling?

That question stayed with me.

—  —  —

We often recognise faith through what can be seen.

The prayer mat. The raised hands. The bowed head. The familiar words upon our lips. The religious messages we share with others.

These things matter. They are part of our worship.

The ayat does not diminish the qiblah. Allah Himself commands believers to face it. The direction matters because obedience matters.

But perhaps the warning begins when outward worship becomes disconnected from the compassion, integrity and humility it is meant to produce.

A face may turn in the right direction while the rest of life travels elsewhere.

Prayer may become part of the daily routine without entering the way we speak, earn, promise, give and forgive.

We may become careful about religious form while remaining careless with another person’s heart.

That was the uncomfortable possibility I found within the ayat.

I had expected it to define righteousness as an idea.

Instead, it showed me a person.

A person who believes in Allah, the Last Day, the angels, the revealed Books and the prophets.

A person who gives from what is still loved.

A person who establishes prayer and fulfils the obligation of zakat.

A person whose word can be trusted.

A person who remains patient through deprivation, suffering and moments of fear.

The ayat seems to gather the unseen and the visible into one life.

Faith begins within the heart, where no other person can see it.

But the ayat does not allow it to remain invisible.

It must somehow appear in what the hand is willing to release, in the promises the tongue chooses to honour, and in the person who emerges when life becomes difficult.

Righteousness is faith made credible.

—  —  —

The words about giving also made me pause.

The ayat does not merely describe people who give. It speaks of those who give from wealth they still love.

There is a difference.

Giving is relatively easy when we part with something we no longer need. Old clothes. Unwanted belongings. A small amount that does not disturb our comfort.

But what happens when generosity costs us something?

Perhaps generosity does not begin only when our attachment disappears.

Perhaps it begins when faith becomes stronger than that attachment.

And what we hold tightly is not always money.

Sometimes it is our time.

Our comfort.

Our attention.

Our pride.

Even our willingness to forgive.

There are moments when another person does not need a great donation from us. They need us to listen without rushing, to remain present when their story becomes repetitive, or to offer kindness when they have nothing to give in return.

—  —  —

The ayat then returns to prayer and zakat.

That order seems important.

Righteousness is not an argument against ritual. Prayer remains at its centre.

But prayer is meant to do more than organise our day. It should slowly reorganise the person.

Five times a day, we turn away from everything competing for our attention and face Allah.

We declare that Allah is greater.

Greater than our work.

Greater than our worries.

Greater than our reputation.

Greater even than the ego we carry onto the prayer mat.

But when the prayer ends, does that declaration follow us?

Does it make us gentler at home?

Does it change how we treat someone who holds no position, influence or advantage for us?

These are not easy questions.

—  —  —

Then the ayat mentions those who honour their promises.

It seems like such an ordinary quality beside belief, prayer and sacrifice.

Yet a promise reveals something deeply spiritual.

Anyone can give their word when keeping it is easy.

Its value is tested when circumstances change, when a better opportunity appears, or when the person who trusted us has no power to hold us accountable.

A broken promise may feel small to the person who breaks it.

It rarely feels small to the person who believed it.

Perhaps this is why faith must enter even the quiet agreements of everyday life: the call we said we would return, the debt we promised to settle, the confidence entrusted to us.

Righteousness may be revealed not only in great acts witnessed by many, but in small promises remembered by two people — and by Allah.

—  —  —

Then the ayat follows faith into the places where beautiful words are easiest to lose.

Deprivation.

Suffering.

Moments of danger and fear.

It is easier to speak of trust when life unfolds as we hoped.

When health is good.

When income is steady.

When the people we love remain beside us.

When prayers appear to be answered quickly.

But what happens when life moves in another direction?

Patience does not mean the pain no longer hurts. Nor does it require us to pretend that everything is fine.

Perhaps patience is remaining recognisable as a believer when life itself becomes unrecognisable.

It is refusing to let disappointment turn us cruel.

It is continuing to trust Allah while still carrying questions.

It is holding on when we cannot yet see where the road is leading.

At the end of the ayat, Allah describes such people as those who are true and those who are mindful of Him.

The word true made me stop.

Their truth is not established merely by what they say about themselves.

Their lives confirm it.

What they believe enters what they give.

Their prayer enters their character.

Their promises become trustworthy.

Their faith survives beyond comfort.

The ayat is not asking whether we can describe our faith.

It is asking whether our lives confirm it.

—  —  —

By then, the ayat was no longer describing somebody somewhere else.

It had quietly turned the mirror towards me.

Has my prayer changed the way I treat people?

Does my word still mean something when keeping it becomes inconvenient?

Who do I become when life does not unfold according to my plans?

The journey had returned to my own heart.

My friend may have thought he was sending me a photograph of an ayat.

But the longer I looked at it, the more it felt like a mirror.

I know the direction towards which I turn in prayer.

The quieter question is whether my words, my promises, my possessions and my conduct are travelling in that same direction.

— KopiTalk Jiwa

Day Five of LegCo: Government Sets Its Own Test for Delivery

KopiTalk LegCo Tracker · Second Meeting, Day Five — In-Depth from the Hansard · 10 August 2026

From public transport and tourism to Wawasan 2035, Monday produced new targets, timelines and promises. But the day's more consequential message came from Government itself: coordination must produce solutions, not another layer of process.

By Malai Hassan Othman

After five days of questions about housing, jobs, transport, tourism and Government coordination, one sentence on Monday afternoon cut through much of the policy language.

Yang Berhormat Pehin Datu Lailaraja Major General (Rtd) Dato Paduka Seri Awang Haji Halbi bin Haji Mohd Yussof told the Legislative Council:

“Penyelarasan perlu menghasilkan penyelesaian bukan menambah lapisan proses.”

Coordination must produce solutions, not add another layer of process.

It was a significant statement from the Coordinating Minister for National Security at a Meeting that began with the Council endorsing His Majesty's appointment of three new Coordinating Ministers.

Five sitting days later, one of those Ministers had effectively supplied the standard against which the new structure itself should eventually be measured.

Not coordination for coordination's sake.

But whether Government can connect planning, implementation and results.

YB Pehin Halbi said Brunei is not short of policies, strategies, blueprints, programmes or initiatives. The priority now is making those plans work together and produce results.

That requires clear leadership, understood responsibilities, realistic timelines, evidence-based decisions and early intervention when weaknesses emerge during implementation.

There are now numbers against which some of that progress can eventually be tested.

The updated Wawasan Brunei 2035 framework connects its three goals with eight national priorities, 13 National Outcomes and 42 National KPIs.

Government says progress should increasingly be judged by outcomes and public impact rather than simply by how many programmes or activities have been conducted.

That distinction matters because Government activity and Government delivery are not necessarily the same thing.

And much of Monday's Question Time illustrated precisely why.

Public Transport: From Plans to Implementation

Public transport returned to Council with an important change in emphasis.

Government now describes public transport not merely as a commercial service, but as an essential public amenity connecting communities, supporting economic activity and improving quality of life.

The proposed system combines fixed-route services with Demand Responsive Transit for areas where conventional routes are less practical.

There has already been a lengthy journey to reach this point.

A Request for Information ran from December 2023 to February 2024. A Request for Proposal followed from October 2024 to March 2025.

A potential DRT operator was issued a licence on 30 April 2026, and preparations for implementation are continuing.

The policy direction is therefore clearer.

The public-interest question is now simpler: when will passengers experience the difference?

That is exactly the kind of question YB Pehin Halbi's own delivery standard invites.

Telecommunications: Affordability Is Improving

Government also presented evidence of falling telecommunications costs.

Brunei ranked second in ASEAN and 29th among 208 countries in the ITU's 2025 ICT Price Basket, according to figures presented in Council.

An entry-level BND30 postpaid plan that previously provided 8GB now offers up to 18GB, reducing the cost per gigabyte by more than 55 per cent.

This is a measurable improvement — precisely the kind of before-and-after comparison that makes public policy easier to assess.

The wider digital discussion also touched on stronger anti-scam infrastructure and preparations for an economy increasingly shaped by artificial intelligence.

Education: Are We Training for the Jobs That Exist?

Education and technical training brought another attempt to make outcomes more measurable.

A new Feature Analysis Model is to assess higher-education and TVET programmes against demand, completion rates, costs, employability, relevance, employment outcomes and median salaries.

The model will be implemented across public higher-education institutions beginning this year.

Earlier in this Second Meeting, Council heard that 14,976 Bruneians were active jobseekers as of June, with 79 per cent aged between 21 and 35.

Against that background, measuring a course by how many students enrol or graduate is no longer enough.

The harder question is what happens to them afterwards.

Tourism: One Million Visitors

Tourism produced some of Day Five's biggest numbers.

The government is targeting one million visitors and approximately BND630 million in tourism revenue in 2027.

A BND6.8 million eco-resort is expected to open in August 2027, with a workforce targeted to be 90 per cent local.

Those ambitions are substantial.

But the discussion also returned to a less spectacular problem: visitors still need to be able to discover, book and experience the tourism products Brunei already has.

That is important because this Meeting had already heard that average hotel stays had fallen from around three days to two.

More arrivals will matter.

So will how long they stay, what they spend and how much of that spending reaches hotels, guides, restaurants, transport providers and community businesses.

Once again, the issue comes back to outcomes rather than activity.

Halal: Expertise Is Not Authority

Monday also brought a useful clarification over halal governance.

Universiti Islam Sultan Sharif Ali can contribute research and expertise, but it does not have the authority to approve halal certificates or permits.

That distinction remains with the relevant regulatory authorities.

It may appear administrative, but clarity over who advises, who regulates and who ultimately decides is part of the same governance question running through the Meeting.

Clear responsibilities matter when Government wants faster delivery.

What Members Still Wanted on Record

By afternoon, Government considered the scheduled business of the Meeting completed.

YB Pehin Halbi moved under Standing Order 35(1) for the Meeting to be adjourned to an unspecified date.

Six Members spoke during Monday's adjournment debate.

Their interventions showed that, procedural business aside, substantial concerns remained.

YB Awang Abdul Aziz bin Haji Hamdan spoke about creative industries and identity theft.

YB Awang Amran bin Haji Maidin returned to issues closer to household life — the cost of living, employment and housing.

YB Awang Haji Mohamad Danial @ Tekpin bin Ya'akub pressed for stronger governance of Wawasan Brunei 2035 targets.

YB Awang Lau How Teck raised productivity and the continuing fiscal deficit.

YB Awang Haji Salleh Bostaman bin Haji Zainal Abidin reflected on the Code of Ethics debate and apologised for anything in his conduct that may have caused offence.

Then YB Awang Mohammad Ali bin Tanjong offered perhaps the most useful reminder of what all these days of parliamentary discussion are supposed to achieve:

“Janganlah segala perbahasan kita tinggal sebagai catatan di dalam Hansard, biarlah ia menjadi tindakan.”

Let the debates not remain merely entries in the Hansard. Let them become action.

With more Members still on the Speaker's list, debate on the adjournment motion continued on Tuesday.

Government Has Set the Benchmark

Throughout this Second Meeting, Members have repeatedly asked variations of the same question.

When will plans become delivery?

It surfaced in housing.

It surfaced in public transport.

It surfaced in employment, tourism, Wawasan 2035 and even in the debate over how the Legislative Council should regulate its own conduct.

Day Five did not answer all those questions.

But Government did something important: it articulated more clearly how it wants performance to be judged.

There are national priorities.

There are National Outcomes.

There are KPIs.

There are timelines.

And there is now a public statement from one of the new Coordinating Ministers that coordination should solve problems rather than create another administrative layer.

That gives Council — and the public — something more concrete to return to.

The test from here is not whether Government can produce another strategy, committee, dashboard or programme.

It is whether public transport becomes easier to use; whether young people trained for work actually find it; whether tourists stay longer; whether national KPIs move; and whether coordination shortens the distance between a problem being recognised and something being done about it.

YB Pehin Halbi may therefore have supplied Day Five's most important benchmark himself:

Coordination must produce solutions.

The Hansard has recorded it.

The next measure is delivery.

Day Five at a Glance

Adjournment and delivery. YB Pehin Halbi moved to adjourn the Second Meeting after scheduled business was completed. In his closing remarks, he said cross-ministerial coordination should produce solutions rather than add process, citing the updated Wawasan Brunei 2035 framework: three goals, eight national priorities, 13 National Outcomes and 42 National KPIs. Six Members spoke before the sitting ended, with debate continuing on Tuesday, 11 August.

Telecommunications. Brunei ranked second in ASEAN and 29th among 208 countries on the ITU's 2025 ICT Price Basket. An entry-level BND30 postpaid plan that once offered 8GB now provides up to 18GB, cutting the cost per gigabyte by more than 55 per cent.

Public transport. After a Core Bus Network RFI from December 2023 to February 2024 and an operating RFP from October 2024 to March 2025, a Demand Responsive Transit operator received its licence on 30 April 2026. Implementation preparations are continuing.

TVET and AI. The Ministry of Education outlined strategies to keep technical and vocational education relevant as technology and artificial intelligence reshape work. A Feature Analysis Model is being rolled out across public higher-education institutions to assess demand, completion, cost, employability, relevance, employment outcomes and median salaries.

Anti-scam measures. AITI's Waspada.bn fact-checking platform, launched in June 2025, had published 226 Instagram posts by 1 July 2026. The Anti-Scam Centre helpline 16993 has operated since August 2025, while a dedicated scam-reporting portal is in beta with a Q2 2027 target.

Digital backbone. Government is developing a sovereign cloud with AI compute capability and an in-house large language model, alongside the IKTIRAF accreditation scheme for local ICT firms and an expanding Brunei ICT Industry Competency Framework.

Electric vehicles. EVs accounted for 0.7 per cent, or 124 units, of new vehicle registrations in 2025. Their share rose to 2.8 per cent in the first half of 2026. As of 23 July, Brunei had 22 charging locations with 40 charging points.

Visit Brunei Year 2027. The government is targeting one million visitors and roughly BND630 million in tourism revenue in 2027. A BND6.8 million eco-resort is expected to open in August 2027, with a workforce targeted to be 90 per cent local.

Halal governance. The Minister of Education clarified that UNISSA's Pusat Penyelidikan Halalan Tayibban supports industry through training and advisory services under a 2023 MOU, but does not have authority to approve halal certificates or permits.

What Do We Give the Tourist on Day Three?

KopiTalk LegCo Tracker · Second Meeting — Special Report (Tourism)

Tourism receipts are rising, and hotel sales are up. Yet LegCo heard that the average hotel stay has slipped from around three days to two. As Brunei prepares for Visit Brunei Year 2027, perhaps the harder challenge is no longer simply getting visitors here — but giving them enough reason, and an easy enough journey, to stay another night.

By Malai Hassan Othman

 

As Brunei prepares for Visit Brunei Year 2027, it aims to encourage visitors to stay longer and spend more. 

The latest numbers suggest we first need to understand why today's visitor is leaving sooner. During the 22nd Legislative Council's Second Meeting, the Government disclosed an intriguing contradiction: tourism receipts for the first half of 2026 were estimated at around BND150 million, up from BND140 million over the same period last year, and hotel sales rose by about 17 per cent, from roughly BND17 million to BND20 million. Good numbers, except for one. The average hotel stay has fallen from around three days to two — a figure that deserves more attention than it might receive buried among the tourism statistics, because Visit Brunei Year 2027 is not supposed to be simply a headcount exercise. Government told LegCo its strategy is to attract higher-value visitors: people who stay longer, spend more and seek better experiences. Which raises a simple question. What do we give the tourist on Day Three?

Two days is not merely a Government statistic. It also appears in the way Brunei is discussed by travellers and the public. In recent online discussions about tourism, one commenter advised newcomers not to spend more than two days here, warning they would grow bored; another pushed back, arguing that river and jungle experiences in Temburong could easily add another day or two. Elsewhere, a visitor planning a short Brunei trip asked locals what there actually was to do, how to get around, whether cash was necessary and which foods should not be missed. These are anecdotal voices, not tourism research, and should not be confused with representative surveys — but they are worth listening to, because the question a tourist asks before buying an additional hotel night is rarely whether a country has a tourism master plan. It is much simpler: what am I going to do tomorrow? And here Brunei has an interesting problem, because there may be more to do than our reputation suggests. LegCo heard about sunset dinner cruises on the Brunei River, stargazing at Luagan Lalak, firefly trips along Sungai Damuan, a new nocturnal forest trail opened by the longhouse community at Rumah Panjang Mendaram, traditional food, community-based tourism and rainforest adventures — a list detailed enough that when Government presented it under the label "night-time economy," even the Speaker interrupted to say the phrase itself sounded a little too racy for its own good, and challenged the Member who had asked the question to come up with something better. The Chamber laughed; nobody, as far as the record shows, has succeeded yet. So perhaps the problem is not that Brunei has too little. Perhaps too much of what we have remains disconnected from the visitor's actual journey.

Imagine arriving at Brunei International Airport for the first time. Day One almost writes itself: check into the hotel, visit the Omar 'Ali Saifuddien Mosque, walk around Bandar Seri Begawan, cross into Kampong Ayer, find ambuyat or nasi katok, perhaps take a river cruise. Day Two can be Temburong, nature, heritage or another organised excursion. Then comes the test: Day Three. The fireflies may exist. The stargazing may exist. The longhouse trail may exist. But can the visitor find it, book it, reach it and pay for it without a Bruneian friend sitting beside them explaining how everything works? An attraction only becomes part of the journey when the visitor can actually get to it. Government appears to recognise the discovery problem: LegCo heard about the Explore Brunei and Nakhoda platforms, partnerships with online travel agents such as Agoda, Ctrip and Expedia, campaigns with international outlets like CNN and Al Jazeera, and efforts to improve how tourism operators package and market their products. Those initiatives deserve credit. Visit Brunei Year 2027 will test whether they connect the pieces quickly enough.

Transport is where public discussion becomes harder to ignore. Online commentary repeatedly returns to the sight of tourists walking around Bandar, Kiulap and Gadong under Brunei's heat, apparently because independent mobility is not always straightforward. One commenter described foreign visitors waiting at a pedestrian crossing for a signal that never seemed to change, while locals simply knew when it was safe to cross. This is an anecdotal observation, not verified evidence of a nationwide infrastructure problem — but it illustrates something tourism planning sometimes overlooks: a country's reputation can be won or lost in very small places, at a crossing, a bus stop, a payment counter, or the ten minutes between one attraction and the next. Brunei's public-transport transformation has a long history of its own. A comprehensive plan was tabled in 2015, a route-network proposal followed in 2016, and implementation was once targeted for mid-2017. Nearly a decade on, LegCo heard this year that a more flexible, on-demand Demand Responsive Transit service was finally due to launch in 2026 — explicitly framed, this time, as preparation for Visit Brunei Year 2027. For residents with cars, public transport can remain an abstract policy discussion. For an independent tourist, it can determine the itinerary: a beautiful attraction thirty kilometres away is not quite a tourism product if the visitor cannot work out how to reach it and return.

There is another side to this story. Not every visitor thinks Brunei needs to become busier. A recent traveller who spent three days here wrote positively about precisely what some critics dismiss: the quietness — the pleasure of wandering without being hassled, talking to people, having coffee, visiting a museum, slowing down during the midday heat and heading out again for dinner. That perspective deserves attention too. Brunei is unlikely to out-shop Kuala Lumpur, out-entertain Singapore or out-nightlife Bangkok, and even its rainforest and Borneo experiences compete with established products in neighbouring Sabah and Sarawak. So what is distinctly ours? Perhaps part of the answer is something modern travellers increasingly struggle to find elsewhere: space to slow down. Safety, quietness, greenery, Islamic heritage, kampong life, rainforest, food — a capital where a visitor can move from monumental architecture to a water village within minutes, among communities that still feel like communities rather than tourism sets. If that is part of Brunei's proposition, it has to be deliberately packaged as an experience, not left for fortunate travellers to discover by accident. There is a difference between peaceful and empty, between unhurried and inconvenient, between authentic and merely difficult to find — and Visit Brunei Year 2027 may depend on understanding exactly where those lines sit.

This is why the fall from three days to two deserves attention. It does not necessarily mean Brunei tourism is failing — receipts and hotel sales are moving the other way — nor does it prove tourists are bored; the Hansard gives the average stay, not the reasons behind it. But when Government's own stated strategy is to make visitors stay longer, a shortening stay is a signal worth investigating rather than explaining away. And the target does not need to sound grand: get Day Three back. One additional night means another hotel room occupied, another breakfast, another transport journey, another guide, another entrance fee, another coffee — another chance for a kampung operator, restaurant, stallholder or small business to earn part of the tourist dollar. Not every visitor will stay a week; Brunei may not need them to. But persuading someone already here to spend one more night may sometimes be worth more than spending heavily to persuade someone new to arrive for only two.

One of the more perceptive observations to emerge from LegCo's tourism discussion was that visitors do not experience Brunei according to Government organisation charts. They do not distinguish between the responsibilities of tourism authorities, immigration, transport agencies, municipalities and private operators. They experience Brunei as one journey — which should probably be the real test of Visit Brunei Year 2027: not whether the airport banner is ready, how many expos were attended, or how many influencers posted photographs, but whether a visitor can arrive, discover what Brunei offers, book it, move around easily, pay conveniently, enjoy the experience, and wake up on the third morning still having somewhere they genuinely want to go. Brunei already has many of the pieces. The harder work is making them behave like one destination. When 2027 arrives, we will understandably count how many tourists came. Perhaps we should count something else just as carefully: how many stayed for Day Three.

 

The Years We Spend Waiting for a Home

KopiTalk LegCo Tracker · Second Meeting — Special Report (Housing)

Brunei is building more houses. But the latest LegCo debate exposed another measure that matters just as much as the number of units completed: how much of a family's life passes before the keys finally arrive.

By Malai Hassan Othman

He applied for a house before he turned 30 — not because he had nowhere to live, and not because he was struggling to put a roof over his head. The young civil servant held a middle-management position in the public service, earned around BND3,000 a month, and as a Government officer already had access to Government accommodation. The house he applied for was different: a home he hoped eventually to own under the National Housing Scheme, and he applied early for a reason people in their twenties are often accused of not thinking about — retirement. His calculation was simple. Get into the housing scheme while young, receive a house early enough, and pay it off during his working years, so that by the time the salary stopped coming, the house would already be his.

Then came the housing interview. He was told, he says, that priority was understandably going to applicants in lower-income categories who did not enjoy housing privileges — and with a reasonable salary and access to Government accommodation, his circumstances did not place him among those in immediate need. There is an obvious fairness in that: when houses are limited, the family with the greatest need should come first. But another calculation began troubling him. What if his turn came only in his forties, with perhaps 15 or 20 years of salaried service left — enough time to comfortably settle a housing payment before retirement, or not? His question was no longer simply when he would get his house. It was how old he would be when he did.

That distinction matters, because housing emerged as one of the more relatable issues in the Second Meeting of the 22nd Legislative Council — and because there are actually two different housing conversations running alongside each other, easily blurred by a single phrase like "waiting for housing." One is the National Housing Scheme, ultimately about home ownership. The other is Government accommodation for eligible public servants — essentially, where an officer and their family live while serving. LegCo was told that as of 9 July, 1,092 public servants remained on the waiting list for Government accommodation administered by the Public Service Department, with an average wait of one to four years — a figure that excludes separate housing lists run by other Government institutions, so it is not even the whole national picture. Behind those 1,092 names is a question the statistic does not answer: where are they living while they wait — adequately housed, still in a family home, or renting privately? The Hansard does not say. But Government should find out, because knowing how many people are waiting is only half the story; knowing how they live while they wait is what tells us the consequences.

It would be unfair to tell this story as though nothing is being built. LegCo heard that Brunei's home-ownership rate stands at 68.1 per cent, with an ambition to reach 85 per cent by 2035. Under the 12th National Development Plan, at least 1,606 new houses are planned — 576 terrace houses at Kampong Lugu Phase 2B, 330 at Kampong Rimba Phase 6, 300 at Kampong Salambigar and 400 at Kampong Lumut Phase 7 — with further sites identified across all four districts. The government also said the Ministry of Development and the Coordinating Minister for Social Policies and Manpower have, since July, been reviewing housing eligibility and policy, including a basic question: what can applicants at different income levels actually afford? The review is looking at matching house type and price to financial capacity, and at drawing banks, investors and local developers further into affordable housing delivery — which suggests the Government already senses the next housing challenge cannot be answered simply by counting units. The house has to match the household, and perhaps the financing period has to match the applicant's stage of life.

This is where the young officer's story becomes uncomfortable, and useful. It is not an argument that a BND3,000-a-month public servant deserves a house before a struggling family — a state-supported scheme has every reason to prioritise genuine need. But housing policy has to reconcile two different forms of fairness: a need-based fairness that gives scarce housing first to those who need it most, and what might be called life-cycle fairness — a realistic chance to acquire and pay for a home while enough working years remain. Most of the time the two coexist. When waiting stretches on, they pull apart: someone who applies at 28 and receives a house at 30 faces a very different financial horizon than someone who applies at 28 and receives it at 43, even though it is the same applicant and the same house. None of this means the young officer will actually be made to keep paying past retirement — his anxiety about that outcome is separate from the formal repayment rules that will eventually apply to him. But the anxiety exposes a real policy question: should housing priority weigh only how urgently someone needs a house today, or also how many working years they have left to pay for it? Perhaps the answer is not choosing one over the other, but designing a system that can recognise both.

There was another revealing moment in the debate. LegCo asked whether National Housing Scheme planning accounts for social impact — family stability and mental wellbeing, not merely units delivered — and the answer was telling. Housing design traditionally provides at least three bedrooms, reflecting the needs of parents, boys and girls; newer designs have moved toward four, including a downstairs room for elderly or unwell parents. National housing estates also provide or plan for mosques, schools, playgrounds, sports facilities, commercial spaces and community areas, which the Ministry explicitly linked to children's development, mental wellbeing, social interaction and stronger families. Government, in other words, is already saying housing is not merely shelter — it is social infrastructure that shapes family life. Which raises the question the debate did not quite ask: if receiving a home contributes to family stability, what does waiting years for one do? There is no simple statistic for that.

Perhaps the most quietly poignant reform disclosed in the proceedings was also the least dramatic. Since January, a new mechanism allows the spouse, child or registered adopted child of a National Housing Scheme applicant who dies before receiving their allocated land or house to take over that application while keeping its original application year — a compassionate rule that stops a family being sent back to the beginning simply because the person whose name was on the application did not live long enough to receive it. But the provision's existence quietly tells its own story: sometimes the housing journey outlasts the applicant. That is when years become more revealing than units.

Housing policy will always need numbers — applicants, houses, land, cost per unit, how many the Government can build this year. Those are legitimate questions. But this debate exposed another number worth measuring: how much of a person's life passes between application and possession. For the public servant waiting on Government accommodation, that may mean years renting or sharing a family home — though Government needs better information before anyone can say how common either really is. For an older applicant, it can mean receiving the keys with fewer earning years left. And for the young officer who applied in his twenties, the dream was never simply to receive a subsidised house. It was to work, pay for it, and reach retirement knowing the roof over his head was finally, entirely his. Brunei is building houses. The harder question is whether we can build — and allocate — them in time for the lives being lived while people wait.

Day Four of LegCo: The Man Who Wrote the Code Asked Council Not to Pass It Yet

Brunei’s first Code of Ethics for lawmakers was ready to take effect. Then the man who led its drafting asked Council to wait. Why? Day Four revealed something more important than simply passing rules: the courage of an institution to question its own work before asking others to trust it.

KopiTalk LegCo Tracker · Second Meeting, Day Four — In-Depth (From the Hansard) · 8 August 2026

On Thursday, one Member said Brunei's first Code of Ethics for its own lawmakers wasn't ready. On Saturday, the backbencher who led the drafting agreed with him — and asked Council to hold his own document back for six more months. Council said yes, unanimously.

By Malai Hassan Othman

Yang Berhormat Awang Haji Salleh Bostaman bin Haji Zainal Abidin told Council on Thursday that Brunei's first written Code of Ethics and Conduct for its own Members had reached the floor too fast to study properly. In its current form, he said, it was "masih belum bersedia untuk diterima" — not yet ready to be accepted. On Saturday, the man who had led the drafting of that same Code effectively told Council the same thing, in his own words, about his own work.

Yang Berhormat Pengiran Haji Isa bin Pengiran Haji Aliuddin led the committee that wrote the Code, and Council already knew him well by Saturday. On Day Two he had described navigating cross-agency "grey areas" running a poultry business; on Day Three, Council learned he had personally chaired the drafting committee. Now he moved an amendment to the very motion he had helped bring to the floor. The original text asked Council to resolve that the Code "berkuat kuasa mulai 26 Safar 1448 bersamaan 10 Ogos 2026, dan diterima pakai kepada semua Ahli Majlis Mesyuarat Negara" — take effect from 10 August and bind every sitting Member immediately. His amendment replaced that with something more modest: that the draft "akan dirujuk kepada satu Jawatankuasa untuk meneliti, memperhalusi dan mengemukakan Kod Etika dan Tatakelakuan kepada Majlis dalam tempoh enam bulan" — be referred instead to a committee, for further study and refinement, with six months to bring a revised version back to the floor.

It is a striking thing for an author to do to his own work in public. YB Pengiran Isa did not withdraw the Code, and he did not frame this as a concession that YB Salleh Bostaman had been right two days earlier — he admitted the draft could still have aspects that needed improving, and would benefit from far more thorough consultation before it bound every Member in that Chamber. He was not abandoning what he had built. He was slowing it down, on the record, in front of the body it was meant to govern.

The Speaker, Yang Berhormat Pehin Orang Kaya Seri Lela Dato Seri Setia Awang Haji Abdul Rahman bin Dato Setia Haji Mohamed Taib, allowed the amendment under Standing Order 20(8), invoking the Council's own motto as he did so — Adil, Laila, Bahagia. Yang Berhormat Dato Seri Setia Awang Haji Sufian bin Haji Sabtu, Minister at the Prime Minister's Office for Security and Law, rose to support it, and so, eventually, did nearly every Member who spoke across two sittings.

That support did not mean the questions stopped. Earlier that morning, Yang Berhormat Dato Seri Setia Awang Haji Muhammad Juanda bin Haji Abdul Rashid, Minister of Development, rose to build on the case Yang Berhormat Pehin Datu Lailaraja Mejar Jeneral (B) Dato Paduka Seri Haji Awang Halbi bin Haji Mohd. Yussof — who had introduced the Code on Thursday — had already made, answering two worries left unresolved since then: YB Salleh Bostaman and Yang Berhormat Dayang Chong Chin Yee had asked whether Ministers and appointed Members should really be bound by identical rules, and whether a broadly written confidentiality clause might quietly chill Members from speaking freely at all. YB Juanda did not wave either concern away. He described a Member of a neighbouring legislature forced to resign, and later charged in court, after testimony given to that country's own parliament was found to be false — and another, at a different Dewan in the region, disciplined and barred from sittings after using intemperate language during a live broadcast. Codes of conduct exist in legislatures worldwide, he said, precisely to prevent moments like those, and he offered the plainest version of the Code's underlying logic: "if you have nothing to hide there is nothing to fear." He closed by echoing a line YB Halbi himself had used introducing the Code on Thursday: this was meant as a first document, not a perfect one.

The afternoon belonged to the detail. Yang Berhormat Dayang Hajah Rosmawatty binti Haji Abdul Mumin spent much of it walking Council through the draft clause by clause: how long a Member's obligations should survive after leaving office, whether that duty should follow a Member beyond Brunei's borders and not just this Chamber, and how conflict-of-interest declarations should actually be worded so filing one was unambiguously mandatory. She pressed hardest on the Code's own future disciplinary board — arguing its members should be bound by that same conflict-of-interest logic, recusing themselves from cases touching their own interests, with the board's membership reviewed periodically so it protected the institution without becoming something Members feared more than trusted. Two more Members raised a related concern that afternoon: Yang Berhormat Dayang Hajah Safiah binti Sheikh Haji Abd. Salam and Yang Berhormat Dr. Awang Haji Mahali bin Haji Momin both pressed for narrower wording on the clause governing conduct on social media, so ordinary criticism was never mistaken for a breach. None of it was framed as opposition; every amendment raised was meant to make the document stronger before it went to committee. By then, the Speaker had already made the point to the Chamber: concerns like these, on every clause raised that day, would go to the new committee rather than be resolved on the floor immediately.

Several more Members spoke before the vote, each backing the Code's principles while endorsing the pause YB Pengiran Isa had asked for. Yang Berhormat Awang Haji Md. Salleh bin Haji Othman drew on the Qur'an — Surah An-Nahl's counsel to call people "with wisdom and good advice" — to offer Council its own standard for the kind of criticism it had just spent two sittings absorbing: "Kita boleh mengkritik satu dasar, tetapi kritikan hendaklah bertujuan memperbaiki, bukan menjatuhkan" — a policy can be criticised, he said, but the criticism should aim to improve it, not tear it down. Yang Berhormat Pehin Orang Kaya Indera Pahlawan Dato Seri Setia Awang Haji Suyoi bin Haji Osman, closing the debate just ahead of the vote, thanked His Majesty for the titah that had set the Code in motion and lent his own support to YB Pengiran Isa's amendment.

By late afternoon the debate had produced its answer. The Speaker put the amended motion to a vote. Members raised their hands. "Semua Ahli bersetuju," the Speaker recorded — all Members agreed — and the Jurutulis confirmed it for the record: Usul Bilangan 5/2026, the motion to establish a Code of Ethics and Conduct for Members of the Legislative Council, "dengan pindaan telah diluluskan" — passed, with amendment. Not the version YB Halbi introduced on Thursday. Not the indefinite standstill YB Salleh Bostaman's objection might have produced two days earlier, either. A third outcome: adopted in principle, sent back for six months of further work, due to return to a Council that has now told its own drafting committee, on the record, exactly what it still wants fixed.

There is a version of Brunei's first attempt at self-regulation that reads as failure — a document introduced with royal backing, debated across two sitting days, and still not in force. There is another version, closer to what the transcript actually shows. An institution asked to write rules for its own conduct did something rarer than simply passing them: it let the person who wrote the rules admit, without being forced to, that they weren't finished. And then it believed him. YB Pengiran Isa spent Day Two of this Meeting describing what it costs a business owner to operate inside bureaucratic grey areas nobody has bothered to define clearly. On Saturday, given the chance to define one clearly and quickly, he chose instead to ask Council for six more months to get it right. The sitting was adjourned. Council reconvenes Monday, 10 August.

 

Day Four at a Glance

• The ethics code passes — deferred, not dropped. Usul Bilangan 5/2026 was approved by unanimous show of hands — "Semua Ahli bersetuju," the Speaker recorded — but as amended by its own principal drafter, YB Pengiran Haji Isa: the Code is referred to a Jawatankuasa for further refinement, with a report due back to Council within six months.

• Who Brunei's workforce actually depends on. Of 148,129 private-sector workers counted in the 2025 census, 55 per cent (82,013) are foreign. Dependency is highest in construction (82 per cent foreign), agriculture/forestry/fisheries (75 per cent) and other services (69 per cent). Of 16,158 locals enrolled in 17 workforce-development programmes since 2017, 13,839 have completed them — 60 per cent of those now employed, 21 per cent still job-seeking, 2 per cent continuing their studies, and 17 per cent with no recent employment, job-search or education record on file.

• Halal enforcement, by the numbers. From January to July 2026, the Ministry of Religious Affairs received 1,004 halal certification applications: 614 approved, 150 still awaiting a MUIB decision, 122 in process, 23 exempted, and 55 that could not be approved because the prescribed requirements had not been met (the Ministry's own categories total 964 of the 1,004 filed; the gap is in the record, not this summary). Since 2018, eight serious non-compliance cases have gone to court; in 2026 so far, 509 of 510 warning notices issued were resolved without needing to.

• The Wawasan dashboard, by three different rankings. The refreshed Wawasan Brunei 2035 framework tracks 3 goals, 8 national priorities, 13 national outcomes and 42 KPIs. Brunei ranks 60th globally on the UN's Human Development Index (2023 data) against a 2035 target of the top 10 — but already sits in the top 8 on income per capita (2024, against that same top-10 target) and in the top 32 per cent globally on talent competitiveness (against a top-25-per-cent goal). Its economic-diversification score (HHI 2,265, 2025) remains well short of the 2035 target of under 1,500.

• A welfare system learning to talk to itself. Sistem Kebajikan Negara, a shared data platform linking the Department of Community Development, Zakat and Baitulmal authorities, the Ministry of Education and the Sultan Haji Hassanal Bolkiah Foundation, is now piloting AI-assisted analysis to help identify households falling through gaps between welfare programmes.

• Hajj affordability enters the policy conversation. Brunei currently recognises three Hajj-savings products, offered through TAIB and BIBD; a fourth, Sijil Takaful Haji dan Umrah, has not been offered since 2025. The Ministry of Religious Affairs has not yet carried out a formal study on creating a single integrated savings model, but said the proposal deserved attention given its direct bearing on people's ability to perform the Hajj.

• Da'wah goes where the audience already is. Pusat Dakwah Islamiah now runs religious outreach across nine digital platforms with more than 63,000 combined followers, alongside the Mushaf Brunei Darussalam app (nearly 50,000 downloads) and the "Da'ie Basanayan" podcast aimed at young audiences.

• Village shops, and the jobs gap inside them. Brunei's 1,400 registered kedai kampung employ 16,031 people, but 9,459 of those jobs — 59 per cent — are held by foreign workers. Retail's O-Level-and-below-suited vacancies stood at 528 in the most recent count, against 4,572 local jobseekers in that same bracket still actively looking for work.

• Mosque governance gets a report card. A new four-part audit of Brunei's mosques — administration, financial governance, upkeep and staffing — found 94.4 per cent (102 of 108) filing financial statements on time, but a toilet-cleanliness satisfaction score of just 3.3 out of 5.0 (Feb–Mar 2026 survey), which the Ministry of Religious Affairs itself flagged as needing urgent attention.

Part Three: Between B and D The Choices That Shape Our Journey Home

Between birth and death stands one letter: C—for Choice. Adam fell, but his fall was not his final answer. Perhaps what defines us is not the moment we lose our way, but whether, while the door remains open, we still choose to return to Allah and journey home again.

KOPITALK JIWA – THE JOURNEY OF THE HEART

Reflections on Surah Al-Baqarah, Ayat 35–39

In the previous part of this journey, I discovered an appointment I never knew I had.

Allah had declared that He would place a khalifah on earth. Nabi Adam AS was the first to carry that trust, but its responsibility did not end with him.

It passed quietly through the generations until it reached people like us.

Yet as our taddabur class continued into Ayat 35–39, another question entered my mind.

When did Adam’s appointment actually begin?

Was he appointed only after he descended to earth? Was his responsibility as khalifah simply the consequence of his mistake in Paradise?

The sequence of the verses tells us otherwise.

Before the forbidden tree, before the temptation and before the fall, Allah had already declared to the angels that He would place a khalifah on earth.

Earth was not an emergency destination.

Adam’s mistake did not create another plan. The Qur’anic sequence suggests that earth was already his intended destination; the fall became part of the journey towards it.

The destination had already been declared.

Perhaps Adam’s time in Paradise was part of his preparation. There, he encountered something that would define the human journey on earth.

Choice.

—  —  —

Between B and D

There is a simple way of looking at life.

We travel from B to D — from Birth to Death.

We do not choose where we are born, the family awaiting us or the circumstances into which we first open our eyes.

Neither do we decide when our earthly journey will end.

Birth and death stand like two fixed points.

But between B and D lies C.

Choice.

Between the beginning chosen for us and the ending known only to Allah, life places one choice after another before us.

To speak or remain silent.

To forgive or continue carrying the hurt.

To follow what is right or accept what is convenient.

To approach a forbidden boundary or turn away while we still can.

This does not mean that human freedom is unlimited.

We live within circumstances we did not design. Illness, loss, disappointment and injustice may enter our lives without invitation.

We may not choose every trial, but with time, faith and Allah’s help, we can choose how we respond to what it leaves within us.

Bitterness or patience.

Arrogance or humility.

Despair or trust.

Distance from Allah or a journey back towards Him.

—  —  —

The One Tree

Adam and his wife were placed in Paradise and allowed to enjoy its abundance.

Only one boundary was given:

Do not approach this tree.

It was one prohibition in a garden of countless blessings.

Yet human nature can be strange. We sometimes become so preoccupied with the one thing denied to us that we overlook everything already given.

We notice the tree.

We forget the garden.

Allah did not merely tell Adam not to eat from it. He told him not to approach it.

Perhaps the wisdom is that some temptations are easier to resist from a distance.

A person seldom abandons a principle in one dramatic step. The journey usually begins with smaller choices.

We approach.

We entertain the thought.

We make one exception.

We tell ourselves that it is harmless and that we remain in control.

Then yesterday’s exception becomes today’s habit.

—  —  —

The Choice After the Fall

Iblis persuaded Adam and his wife to cross the boundary.

The Qur’an does not blame the woman alone. Both encountered the temptation, both slipped and both recognised what had happened.

Adam made the wrong choice at the tree.

But that was not his final choice.

After the fall, another choice appeared before him.

He could defend himself. He could blame Iblis or search for an excuse.

Instead, Adam and his wife turned towards Allah:

Rabbana zalamna anfusana…

“Our Lord, we have wronged ourselves. If You do not forgive us and have mercy upon us, we will certainly be among the losers.”

There was no attempt to shift responsibility.

There was recognition.

“We have wronged ourselves.”

Those words carry a quiet truth that I have been slow to understand.

Perhaps we wrong ourselves not only through the mistakes we make, but also through the pain we refuse to release.

When we carry anger or resentment long after the incident has passed, it is often our own peace that bears the weight.

Someone else may have thrown the rubbish, but we are the one who picks it up, puts it in a pocket and carries it home.

Iblis had also disobeyed Allah, but he defended his disobedience through pride. Adam acknowledged his wrong and sought forgiveness.

One looked for justification.

The other looked for mercy.

One mistake hardened into arrogance.

The other softened into repentance.

Perhaps the difference was not simply that one fell and the other did not.

It was what each chose after falling.

—  —  —

The Door Was Already There

Ayat 37 gives the story its most tender turn.

Allah taught Adam the words of repentance and then accepted his repentance.

The One who had been disobeyed was also the One who taught Adam how to return.

Adam did not have to search for the door of mercy alone.

Allah gave him the words with which to knock.

Then He opened the door.

Syaitan seeks two victories over us. The first is to make us fall. The second is to convince us that we are too stained to return.

Ayat 37 breaks that illusion.

The door of repentance was not created after Adam fell.

The door was already there.

—  —  —

The Journey Continues

Adam’s repentance was accepted, but he still descended to earth.

Forgiveness does not always mean that every consequence disappears. A careless word may leave a scar. A wrong decision may change the direction of a life.

But Adam was not sent to earth abandoned.

He carried knowledge, the experience of repentance and Allah’s promise of guidance.

His descent was not the end of his relationship with Allah.

It was the beginning of humanity’s journey with divine guidance.

As I walked home from the mosque after our Subuh taddabur class, I found myself looking back at my own journey.

At my age, many choices lie behind me.

There were words that could have been gentler, moments when I spoke too quickly and occasions when I listened too slowly.

I cannot return to the B at which my story began.

I cannot see when the D will arrive.

And I cannot walk backwards through time to rewrite every C behind me.

But I still have today’s choice.

As long as Allah allows the heart to recognise where it has gone wrong, the journey is not finished.

As long as the tongue can still say Rabbana zalamna anfusana, the road home has not disappeared.

—  —  —

Birth was chosen for me.

Death will arrive at the time already written.

But between B and D, Allah has entrusted me with C.

Choice.

And the choice that finally defines us is not whether we have ever fallen.

It is what we choose to do after the fall.

— KopiTalk Jiwa

The Ethics Code Reached the Floor. The Questions Arrived With It.

KopiTalk LegCo Tracker · Second Meeting, Day Three — In-Depth from the Hansard · 6 August 2026 

By Malai Hassan Othman

Brunei's first code of ethics for Legislative Council members opened with broad support for its purpose. Then came the harder question: adopt a workable first code and improve it later, or settle its safeguards before asking the Chamber to bind itself?

Yang Berhormat Awang Haji Salleh Bostaman bin Haji Zainal Abidin began with a warning about process. A document important enough to govern the conduct of Legislative Council members, he said, had reached them dalam tempoh yang agak singkat — within a relatively short period — before they were asked to consider adopting it.

He supported the direction. He did not support the draft in its present form.

By the time he sat down, Brunei's first Code of Ethics and Conduct for Legislative Council Members had acquired something every credible integrity instrument should survive: scrutiny from the people it was designed to bind.

The code was not rejected. Nor did Council try and fail to pass it. Usul Bilangan 5/2026 remained under debate when the Speaker adjourned the sitting, with other members still to be heard when Council reconvenes on Saturday, 8 August.

That distinction matters. What happened on Thursday was not institutional failure. It was the beginning of an argument over how an institution should restrain itself — and how carefully it must draw the line between accountability and the freedom to perform a representative duty.

The morning had opened with a cleaner ending to another story. Usul Bilangan 4/2026, supporting His Majesty's decision to establish three Coordinating Minister posts, was put to a show of hands after a multi-day debate. Every hand went up. The motion passed unanimously, and the gavel came down.

Usul Bilangan 5/2026 was different from the moment it reached the floor.

Yang Berhormat Pehin Datu Lailaraja Mejar Jeneral (B) Dato Paduka Seri Haji Awang Halbi bin Haji Mohd. Yussof introduced it by returning to His Majesty's call in February 2025 for a code that would help members discharge their duties dengan lebih berkesan dan berintegriti tinggi — with greater effectiveness and higher integrity.

He also cited His Majesty's March 2026 warning that the Government tidak akan bertolak ansur — would not tolerate — corruption, because unchecked corruption could threaten national security.

The draft was led by Yang Berhormat Pengiran Haji Isa bin Pengiran Haji Aliuddin, whose account of two decades navigating cross-agency grey areas anchored this column's Day Two report. It also drew input from the Attorney General's Chambers, the Anti-Corruption Bureau and Legislative Council members, alongside practices used by overseas legislatures.

Five principles run through it: loyalty, integrity, professionalism, transparency and mutual respect.

Its reach is wider than ceremonial behaviour. It covers conduct during sittings and official engagements, compliance with the law, conflicts of interest, declarations of assets, gifts, confidential information, prudent use of public resources and obligations continuing after a member leaves office.

The draft also contains enforcement machinery: complaint procedures, preliminary review and investigation, an investigative board and a declaration register. That is important because the mover placed the code in the space below the criminal threshold.

Corruption and criminal breach of trust are already offences. Public confidence, however, can also be damaged by an undeclared gift, an unmanaged conflict, misuse of office, favouritism or nepotism — conduct that may be unethical even when it does not result in a criminal prosecution.

The question was never whether integrity mattered. It was whether the draft had drawn its obligations precisely enough.

Yang Berhormat Pehin Orang Kaya Johan Pahlawan Dato Seri Setia Awang Haji Adanan bin Begawan Pehin Siraja Khatib Dato Seri Setia Haji Md. Yusof spoke first. He supported the code as a historic step, but asked that post-service obligations be confined mainly to confidentiality rather than following a former member indefinitely.

YB Pehin Dato Adanan also urged comparison with international parliamentary standards, including work associated with the Inter-Parliamentary Union and Commonwealth Parliamentary Association. His preferred route was to introduce the code, then review and update it periodically. He also asked how far work had progressed on updating the Council's Standing Orders — a related question that should not disappear beneath the ethics debate.

Yang Berhormat Dayang Chong Chin Yee followed. Her intervention was supportive but technically careful.

If confidential material was to be protected, she asked, who would identify it as confidential? Would the definition extend beyond material formally classified under security rules? Would members receive the ICT policies they were expected to obey, a practical compliance guide, a briefing and a named officer from whom to seek advice?

She also asked how one code would apply across two different roles. Ministers exercise executive authority and are already subject to administrative, financial, procurement and public-service rules. Appointed members may face conflicts arising from private employment, business, professional practice or organisational involvement.

YB Chong did not argue for weaker standards. She asked for clarity about which obligations apply to everyone, which relate specifically to parliamentary work and how the code interacts with rules already governing ministerial office.

Then YB Salleh Bostaman changed the temperature of the room.

He accepted that the code was a step in the right direction. But as is, he said, it still contained issues requiring explanation and adjustment — made more troubling by the short time members had been given to consider it.

Conflict-of-interest declarations, he argued, should not be voluntary. They should be mandatory, filed periodically, updated when circumstances change and extended to relevant interests involving spouses and dependent children.

He wanted members with a relevant conflict to declare it, seek approval where appropriate, withdraw from the affected consideration and have that action recorded. Gifts should carry a defined financial threshold rather than a standard open to argument after the event.

His concern also reached beyond domestic transactions. Approaches involving foreign governments, agencies or outside organisations — including sponsorship, hospitality, donations, services and lobbying — should be declined, declared and reported where they could advance a private interest or create the appearance of conflict.

The most delicate point concerned information.

YB Salleh Bostaman fully accepted that properly classified secrets must remain protected. But not every piece of official information is necessarily secret. If the definition becomes too broad, he warned, members could become 'overzealously cautious' — afraid to ask legitimate questions or give constituents a straight explanation for fear that any answer might be treated as a breach.

He applied the same reasoning to collective responsibility. It should preserve confidence in government, he said, without closing the space for alternative views, difficult discussions and legitimate scrutiny. If appointed members merely repeated one position, the checks-and-balances function of the institution would weaken.

He also wanted the proposed investigative board and its membership more clearly defined, together with rules covering social media, sexual harassment and protection for members themselves.

His conclusion was unambiguous. The code was masih belum bersedia untuk diterima dalam bentuknya yang sedia ada — not yet ready to be accepted in its current form. He recommended further examination and coordination before it returned for the Chamber's support.

The Speaker then entered the discussion with a careful qualification. He said he was not trying to give weight to either side — 'which I shouldn't be and I have no business to do it' — but acknowledged that he shared the same institutional interest as the other members.

No code, he observed, would ever satisfy everyone or become a perfect document. 'We will have to start somewhere.'

That supplied the debate's real dividing line.

One approach says an institution should begin with a workable code, learn from experience and refine it over time. The other says that confidentiality, conflicts, gifts, investigations and members' freedom to scrutinise government are too consequential to leave imprecise at the point of adoption.

Both positions can claim integrity as their purpose. One fears delay. The other fears ambiguity.

With other business still on the agenda, the Speaker adjourned the sitting without calling a vote. He indicated that other members would be given room to continue the debate. The motion was neither passed nor rejected, and it was not formally referred back. It remains before the Chamber.

There is something healthy in that unfinished ending. A code intended to protect public confidence should not acquire legitimacy merely because everyone agrees that ethics are important. Its legitimacy will also depend on whether its rules are clear, even-handed, enforceable and safe for honest scrutiny.

Saturday will show whether Council chooses to start somewhere or first decide exactly where that somewhere should be.

Day Three of LegCo, in a Nutshell

The coordinating-minister motion passes — Usul Bilangan 4/2026 was approved unanimously by a show of hands after the mover's summation. The Hansard records all members present raising their hands before the gavel confirmed the result.

The ethics-code debate remains open — Usul Bilangan 5/2026 was introduced and seconded, followed by three speeches from YB Pehin Dato Adanan, YB Chong and YB Salleh Bostaman. No vote was called before adjournment. Debate is expected to continue when Council reconvenes on Saturday, 8 August.

Beneficial ownership: the figure that should trouble regulators — As of 25 July 2026, only 13.5 per cent of companies registered with ROCBN — 1,301 of 9,633 — had filed beneficial-owner declarations. That was up from 8.2 per cent in April, but still means more than 86 per cent apparently had not filed, 15 months after filing became mandatory on 25 April 2025. The requirement supports FATF Recommendation 24 on money laundering, terrorism financing and proliferation financing.

Fiscal consolidation produces savings — but keep the estimate honest — Phase One ran 86 initiatives, of which 22 were reported completed. Nine completed initiatives were estimated to have generated BND34.7 million in savings, including BND11.6 million from replacing Ministry of Defence meal rations with catering contracts. Phase Two carries 58 initiatives through 2029/2030.

GLC employment comes with localisation numbers — Darussalam Assets group companies employ more than 9,000 people, about 86 per cent of them local. BFI and BMC reported local workforce rates of 80 and 95 per cent. Hengyi had offered engineering scholarship programmes to 935 students and exceeded its agreed 50 per cent localisation level by the end of 2025.

The 30MW solar project has a local-content ledger — The flagship public-private-partnership solar plant is under construction and expected to begin operating by the end of 2026. It is projected to power about 2,000 homes and avoid around 26,000 metric tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions annually. The project created 22 local construction jobs, expects eight local operations and maintenance positions, and awarded about BND5 million — 30 per cent of project value — to local subcontractors.

Tourism spending rises while stays get shorter — Nearly 400,000 visitor arrivals were recorded in the first half of 2026, up 7.8 per cent, with sea arrivals rising 70 per cent. Estimated visitor spending increased from BND140 million to BND150 million and hotel sales rose 17 per cent, from about BND17 million to BND20 million. Yet the average hotel stay fell from approximately three days to two — the figure policy-makers should watch beside the celebratory ones.

Saudi investment will face the normal tests — with Hajj and Umrah in view — The Ministry of Finance said Saudi opportunities would be assessed through cost-benefit, value-for-money, long-term-return and risk analysis. Brunei's Hajj and Umrah requirements — pilgrims' welfare, accommodation costs and continuity of services — would remain an important strategic consideration, not an exemption from investment discipline.

Even 'night-time economy' needed a rethink — A question on tourism after dark prompted the Speaker to suggest that ekonomi waktu malam might need a better label — 'barangkali galak sedikit bunyinya' — drawing laughter across the Chamber. Sometimes policy begins with finding language the public will actually want to repeat.