KOPITALK WITH MHO

Kolum oleh Malai Hassan Othman

SUSULAN  |  Kesinambungan daripada “Perayaan Siapa Sebenarnya?”

 

 

MMN Telah Bersuara. Soalnya, Apa Selepas Ini?

Bandar Seri Begawan  |  Mac 2026

 

 

Nota Editor: Ini adalah kolum ketiga dalam siri mengenai pameran pengguna bermusim di Brunei. Yang pertama, “Perayaan Pengguna Brunei: Lonjakan Wang Tunai — Tetapi Siapa yang Benar-Benar Menang?”, diterbitkan pada tahun 2025 dan mengkaji ke mana wang perayaan mengalir. Yang kedua, “Perayaan Siapa Sebenarnya?”, diterbitkan awal bulan ini, menyorot bagaimana peniaga tempatan semakin terpinggir dalam ekspo dan bazar musim perayaan. Sejak kolum kedua itu diterbitkan, isu ini telah dibawa ke dalam Majlis Mesyuarat Negara, keterangan baharu daripada lapangan telah tiba dari Kuala Belait, dan satu kebimbangan berkaitan pematuhan halal telah disuarakan oleh orang ramai. Kolum ini menangani ketiga-tiga perkembangan tersebut.

 

Tanya mana-mana peniaga tempatan bagaimana musim perayaan lalu berjalan, dan berikan mereka sedikit masa sebelum menjawab.

Kerana jawapannya bukan mudah.

Khemah-khemah didirikan. Orang ramai pun berpusu datang. Wang berpindah tangan.

Dan apabila semuanya selesai, apabila kem-kem itu dilipat dan lori-lori bergerak pulang, terlalu ramai peniaga tempatan yang tertinggal dengan satu persoalan diam di sudut hati — adakah musim perayaan ini pernah benar-benar milik mereka?

Persoalan itu bukan baharu. Ia telah lama bergema. Dan pada 20 Mac lalu, ia akhirnya bergema di dalam Dewan Majlis Mesyuarat Negara — apabila Yang Berhormat Pengiran Haji Isa bin Pengiran Haji Aliuddin berkata dengan tegas: penganjur-penganjur ekspo dan bazar mesti melibatkan syarikat tempatan.

Pelita Brunei merakamkan tajuknya. Kata-kata itu kini tersimpan dalam rekod rasmi negara.

Maka persoalannya beralih. Bukan lagi sama ada masalah ini wujud — ia memang wujud. Soalnya kini: apakah yang akan dilakukan?

 

Apa yang Dikatakan Orang Ramai

 

Satu mesej yang diterima kolum ini menceritakan hal yang pedih: sebuah acara akan datang di Kuala Belait pada bulan April ini — tinggal beberapa minggu sahaja lagi — telah memperuntukkan hampir 95 peratus tapaknya kepada peniaga dari luar. Peniaga tempatan yang memohon dihalang dengan alasan tempat sudah penuh. Menurut aduan, ternyata tempat itu memang penuh — tetapi bukan dengan mereka.

 

Ini bukan peristiwa yang terpencil. Ia satu corak. Dan ia semakin ketara setiap musim.

 

Ada satu lagi persoalan yang terus-menerus muncul dalam perbualan ini, persoalan yang belum pernah dijawab secara langsung oleh mana-mana pihak berkuasa: adakah sesetengah peniaga luar ini masuk ke Brunei atas visa pelancong untuk berniaga? Jika benar, ini bukan kawasan kelabu atau ketidakjelasan undang-undang. Ini adalah lubang dalam sistem yang sedang digunakan, musim demi musim, di hadapan mata semua orang.

 

Pelawat atas visa pelancong tidak dibenarkan menjalankan kegiatan perniagaan. Jika ekspo dan bazar perayaan telah menjadi laluan tidak rasmi bagi peniaga jangka pendek untuk beroperasi tanpa dokumentasi perniagaan yang betul, ini adalah urusan pihak berkuasa imigresen dan perdagangan — bukan sebagai rungutan politik, tetapi sebagai soal integriti pengawalseliaan yang paling asas.

 

Apa yang Angka-angka Ceritakan

 

Kolum ini pernah melihat data jualan runcit yang diterbitkan oleh Jabatan Perancangan Ekonomi dan Statistik. Ia wajar diteliti semula.

 

Pada suku kedua tahun 2021 — ketika sempadan ditutup dan peniaga luar tidak dapat masuk — jualan runcit di Brunei mencapai BND488.2 juta, angka tertinggi dalam tahun-tahun kebelakangan ini. Sempadan dibuka semula. Arah aliran berbalik. Menjelang suku kedua 2025, angka itu jatuh kepada BND394.7 juta — yang paling rendah dalam sekurang-kurangnya lapan tahun, bahkan di bawah paras pra-pandemik.

Ini bukan turun naik biasa.

Ini satu arah yang jelas.

Perkaitan ini mungkin tidak sempurna secara linear, dan kolum ini tidak mendakwa demikian. Tetapi apabila apa yang ditunjukkan oleh data selari secara konsisten dengan apa yang dialami oleh peniaga di lapangan, menjadi sukar untuk berpaling daripada kenyataan itu.

Musim perayaan penting di sini kerana apa yang dipertaruhkan. Kurnia Peribadi sahaja mengalirkan lebih BND17 juta ke tangan rakyat dalam minggu-minggu menjelang Hari Raya. Niatnya jelas: untuk menyokong kehidupan rakyat Brunei semasa perayaan. Apabila sebahagian besar daripada wang itu mengalir terus ke tangan peniaga yang akan pulang selepas acara tamat, natijah yang diharapkan itu pun terhakis.

 

Apabila Halal Menjadi Soal Tanda Tanya

Daripada semua yang dikongsikan dengan kolum ini, inilah yang paling memerlukan pertimbangan yang paling teliti — kerana ia menyentuh sesuatu yang tidak dipandang ringan oleh Brunei, dan tidak seharusnya dipandang ringan.

Orang ramai telah meluahkan satu pemerhatian yang membimbangkan: bahawa pematuhan halal di acara-acara bermusim ini kelihatan beroperasi atas standard yang berbeza daripada waktu-waktu lain dalam setahun. Kebimbangan itu bukan sekadar mengenai kehadiran peniaga luar — ia mengenai hakikat bahawa kehadiran mereka nampaknya bersamaan dengan pelonggaran pengawasan yang biasanya diharapkan oleh rakyat Brunei sebagai satu kewajipan agama dan dasar negara.

Untuk lebih tepat: orang ramai telah menyatakan bahawa gerai-gerai makanan di sesetengah ekspo dan bazar kelihatan beroperasi tanpa pensijilan halal yang wajib dipegang oleh mana-mana premis makanan tetap di Brunei. Yang lain pula mempersoalkan sama ada mekanisme pengawasan — penyelia halal, pemeriksaan mengejut, pengesahan bahan-bahan dan proses penyediaan — dikenakan ke atas peniaga acara jangka pendek dengan ketelitian yang sama seperti yang dikenakan di tempat lain.

Jika pemerhatian itu tepat, ini bukan sekadar ketidakkonsistenan pentadbiran kecil. Piawaian halal di Brunei bukan satu pilihan atau saranan. Ia adalah komitmen perlembagaan dan keagamaan. Ia terpakai sama rata di hotel bertaraf lima bintang, di gerai tepi jalan, dan di khemah di bazar perayaan. Ia tidak berhenti buat sementara semasa sesebuah acara berlangsung. Ia tidak lentur untuk menampung logistik peniaga jangka pendek.

MUIB memegang mandat dan tanggungjawab untuk memastikan integriti halal dikuatkuasakan di seluruh Brunei. Jika acara-acara bermusim ini kini beroperasi dalam zon kelabu — di mana peraturan wujud tetapi penguatkuasaan tidak konsisten — zon kelabu itu perlu ditutup.

Bukan secara senyap.

Dan bukan secara beransur-ansur.

Sekarang.

Orang ramai telah mengajukan kebimbangan ini. Ia layak mendapat jawapan yang jelas, terbuka, dan datang daripada pihak yang bertanggungjawab untuk menegakkannya.

 

Jurang Akauntabiliti

 

Inilah masalah praktikalnya. Apabila ditanya kementerian atau agensi mana yang bertanggungjawab memastikan ekspo perniagaan melibatkan peniaga tempatan secara adil, jawapannya tidak jelas. Adakah ia Kementerian Kewangan dan Ekonomi? Kementerian Hal Ehwal Dalam Negeri? Jabatan imigresen? Persatuan-persatuan industri?

Jawapan yang jujur mungkin: semua mereka — dan tiada satu pun dengan cukup jelas.

Isu-isu yang merentasi pelbagai bidang kuasa lazimnya tidak menjadi milik sesiapa secara khusus. Dan apabila tiada sesiapa yang memiliki sesuatu masalah, masalah itu cenderung untuk kekal tepat di tempat ia berada.

Apa yang diperlukan bukan satu jawatankuasa baharu atau satu kajian yang lain. Yang diperlukan adalah pendirian dasar yang jelas dan berkekalan — satu yang menyatakan: acara-acara perniagaan yang diadakan di Brunei, menggunakan venue Brunei dan kalendar perayaan Brunei untuk menarik pengguna Brunei, mesti memberikan ruang yang bermakna — bukan sekadar simbolik — kepada peniaga Brunei.

Dan ia perlu menyatakan dengan jelas bahawa mereka yang datang ke sini untuk berniaga berbuat demikian atas terma yang betul — berdokumen dengan wajar, bersijil halal, dan mematuhi setiap syarat yang diwajibkan ke atas perniagaan tempatan.

 

Peribahasa Itu Belum Berubah

 

Ada peribahasa Melayu yang pernah digunakan dalam kolum ini, dan ia masih terlalu tepat untuk ditinggalkan.

Kera di hutan disusui, anak di rumah mati kelaparan.

Ia satu gambaran yang keras. Tetapi kekerasan itu bukan buatan — ia mencerminkan hanyutan perlahan sebuah sistem yang tidak lagi seiring dengan apa yang ia direka untuk lindungi.

Peniaga-peniaga tempatan yang menghubungi kolum ini bukan orang yang suka merungut. Mereka adalah pemilik perniagaan yang telah memilih untuk kekal di sini, melabur di bumi ini, membayar lesen dan sewa dan gaji pekerja mereka, tahun demi tahun, musim demi musim. Mereka meminta satu perkara sahaja: peluang yang adil dalam musim perayaan yang sepatutnya paling bermakna bagi mereka.

Dan mereka — bersama setiap pengguna Muslim di negara ini — meminta sesuatu yang amat asas: bahawa apabila mereka membeli makanan di bazar di negara mereka sendiri, mereka boleh yakin ia memenuhi standard yang sama seperti di tempat-tempat lain.

 

Majlis Mesyuarat Negara sudah bersuara.

Rakyat di lapangan sudah bersuara.

Angka-angka pun sudah bersuara.

Soalnya kini mudah.

Adakah sistem akan bertindak balas — atau khemah-khemah akan didirikan semula, dan tiada apa yang berubah?

 

 

 

KopiTalk with MHO

Kolum Kepentingan Awam  |  Mac 2026

  

KOPITALK WITH MHO

Column by Malai Hassan Othman

FOLLOW-UP  |  Continuation of “Whose Festival Is It, Anyway?”

 

 

The Chamber Has Spoken. Now What?

 

This column is the third in a series. The first, “Brunei’s Consumer Fairs: A Cash Surge—But Who Really Wins?”, was published in 2025. The second, “Whose Festival Is It, Anyway?”, appeared earlier this month. Both examined how local vendors are being crowded out of Brunei’s seasonal consumer fairs and trade expos. Since that second piece was published, the issue has entered the Legislative Council chamber. The street has been saying it for months. The numbers have been pointing in the same direction. Now the chamber has said it out loud. The only thing missing is the government’s response.

 

Bandar Seri Begawan  |  March 2026

 

 

Editor's Note: This is the third column in a series on Brunei’s seasonal consumer fairs. The first, “Brunei’s Consumer Fairs: A Cash Surge—But Who Really Wins?”, was published in 2025 and examined where the money goes during the festive season. The second, “Whose Festival Is It, Anyway?”, published earlier this month, looked at how local vendors are being crowded out of trade expos and bazaars by outside traders. Since that piece appeared, the issue has entered the Legislative Council chamber, new ground-level testimony has emerged from Kuala Belait, and a separate but related concern about halal compliance has been raised by members of the public. This column addresses all three.

 

Ask any local trader how the last festive season went, and give them a moment before you expect an answer.

 

Because it is not a simple one.

 

The tents go up. The crowds come. The money moves.

 

And then, when it is all over and the stalls are packed away, too many of them are left with the same quiet question — was any of that really meant for us?

 

That question has been circulating in WhatsApp groups, in coffee shop conversations, in messages sent to this column. And on the 20th of March, it finally found its way into the Legislative Council chamber, where Yang Berhormat Pengiran Haji Isa bin Pengiran Haji Aliuddin said plainly what many had been saying privately: expo and bazaar organisers must involve local companies.

 

Pelita Brunei carried the headline. The words are now on the record.

 

So the question shifts. Not whether the problem exists — it does. The question now is what happens next.

 

What People Are Actually Saying

 

One message shared with this column captures it as well as anything. An upcoming event in Kuala Belait this April — and we are talking about April, weeks from now — has already allocated around 95 percent of its stalls to vendors from outside. Local traders who applied were told the space was full. When they dug a little deeper, they found that the space was indeed full — just not with them.

 

This is not an isolated incident. It is a pattern. And it is getting harder to explain away.

 

There is also a question that keeps coming up in these conversations, one that nobody in authority seems to want to answer directly: are some of these vendors entering Brunei on tourist visas to trade? Because if they are, that is not a grey area or an ambiguity in the rules. That is a hole in the system, and it is being used.

 

Visitors on tourist visas are not permitted to conduct commercial activity. If seasonal expos and bazaars have quietly become a route through which short-term traders operate outside proper commercial documentation, that is a matter for the immigration and trade authorities — not as a political complaint, but as a straightforward question of whether the rules apply equally to everyone.

 

 What the Numbers Say

 

This column has previously examined retail sales data from the Department of Economic Planning and Statistics. It is worth revisiting.

In Q2 of 2021, when borders were closed and foreign vendors could not enter, retail sales in Brunei reached BND488.2 million — the highest figure in recent years. The borders reopened. The trend reversed. By Q2 2025, the number had dropped to BND394.7 million. That is the lowest in at least eight years. It is below pre-pandemic levels.

 

That is not a fluctuation.

 

That is a direction.

 

The relationship is not perfectly linear, and this column is not claiming it is. But when what the data shows lines up consistently with what traders on the ground are experiencing, it becomes difficult to look away.

 

The festive season matters here because of what is at stake. The Kurnia Peribadi alone puts over BND17 million into people's hands in the weeks before Hari Raya. That money is meant to move through the local economy. When a large portion of it flows straight out — into the hands of vendors who will be gone by the time the celebrations are over — the intended effect gets diluted.

 

The Halal Question That Cannot Be Left Unanswered

 

Of everything raised with this column, this is the one that requires the most care — and the most clarity.

 

People have been asking whether halal standards at these seasonal events are being applied with the same rigour as they are everywhere else in Brunei. The concern is specific: that food vendors at certain expos and bazaars appear to operate without the certification that any permanent food establishment would be required to hold. 

 

That oversight — the spot checks, the verification of ingredients, the independence of halal supervisors — seems, to those who have observed it, to relax during these events in a way it does not relax at other times of year.

 

If that observation is accurate, it is not a minor administrative inconsistency. Halal compliance in Brunei is not a preference. It is not a recommendation. It is a religious and constitutional commitment, and it does not carry an exemption clause for the duration of a trade expo.

 

The same standard that applies to a hotel kitchen, a roadside stall, or a school canteen applies to a tent at a festive bazaar. That standard does not pause because the event is only five days long. It does not bend because a vendor has come from far away and the logistics are complicated.

 

MUIB holds the mandate and the responsibility for ensuring halal integrity across Brunei. If seasonal commercial events are currently operating in a grey zone — where the rules exist but the enforcement is inconsistent — that grey zone needs to close.

 

Not quietly.

 

And not gradually.

 

Now.

 

The public has asked this question openly. It deserves an equally open answer.

 

The Accountability Gap

 

Here is the practical problem. When you ask which ministry or agency is responsible for ensuring that commercial expos involve local traders fairly, the answer is not obvious. Is it the Ministry of Finance and Economy? The Ministry of Home Affairs? The immigration department? The industry associations?

 

The honest answer is probably: all of them, and none of them clearly enough.

 

Issues that stretch across departments tend to belong to nobody in particular. And when nobody owns a problem, the problem tends to stay exactly where it is.

 

What is needed is not another study or another committee. It is a clear policy position — one with a name attached to it and a timeline behind it — that says: commercial events held in Brunei, using Brunei's venues and Brunei's festive calendar to attract Brunei's consumers, must give meaningful space to Brunei's traders. Not a token booth in the corner. Meaningful space.

 

And it should say clearly that those who come here to trade must do so on the proper terms — documented, certified, and compliant in every way that local businesses are required to be.

 

The Proverb Has Not Changed

 

There is an old Malay saying that this column has used before, and it fits too well to leave out.

 

Kera di hutan disusui, anak di rumah mati kelaparan.

 

The monkey in the jungle is fed, while the child at home goes hungry.

 

It is a hard image. But the hardness is not manufactured — it comes from watching a slow drift in a system that was built to protect something, and has simply not kept pace with what it set out to do.

 

The local traders who have written to this column are not asking for special treatment. They are not anti-competition or anti-foreign. They are people who chose to stay, to invest here, to pay their licences and their taxes and their staff, year after year. They are asking for one thing: a fair chance at their own festive season.

 

And they are asking something that every Muslim consumer in Brunei has the right to ask — that when they buy food at a bazaar in this country, they can trust that it meets the same standard they expect everywhere else.

 

LegCo has spoken.

 

The street has spoken.

 

The numbers have spoken.

 

The question now is simple.

 

Will the system respond — or will the tents go up again, and nothing change?

 

 

 

KopiTalk with MHO

Public Interest Column  |  March 2026

Day Ten: The Budget Passed. The Ban Was Announced. But the Question Is Why It Took Two Deaths to Get Here.

  

KOPITALK LEGCO TRACKER  |  22nd Legislative Council Session

 

 

 

Day Ten: The Budget Passed. The Ban Was Announced.

But the Question Is Why It Took Two Deaths to Get Here.

KopiTalk with MHO  •  Thursday, 26 March 2026  •  22nd LegCo, Day Ten  |  Morning Session

 

 

Two cyclists died on a Brunei highway on 17 February 2026. They were wearing helmets. They were following the rules. The danger they faced that morning was not new. The data was there. The regulations existed. The campaign had run. So why did it take two lives — and a royal address — to produce the response that was announced in the chamber on Day Ten?

 

 

 

It was 7 o'clock on the morning of 17 February 2026 — the first day of Chinese New Year. Two cyclists were on the Muara-Tutong Highway near Tungku Beach. They were wearing professional cycling attire. They had their helmets on. They were doing what cyclists in Brunei have been doing for years on that road — riding where there was no dedicated lane for them, because no dedicated lane existed.

A car hit them. Both died on the spot. The driver had no valid licence. The vehicle's insurance and road tax had expired. He said the glare of the morning sun had affected his vision and he only realised he had struck someone when he heard the impact.

The accident went viral. It was reported nationally. It was — as the Borneo Bulletin confirmed — directly referenced in the royal address at the opening of this very LegCo session on 12 March, when relevant authorities were urged to review legislative, enforcement, and infrastructure aspects of road safety.

On Day Ten — Thursday, 26 March 2026 — the Transport Minister stood in the chamber and announced the government's response. Cycling will be banned on all major highways and high-speed roads. Dedicated cycling routes will be established in every district. The Road Traffic Act will be amended. Road Safety Action 2030 targets have been set: a 50 per cent reduction in accidents and deaths by 2030, and 80 per cent of main roads at a minimum three-star safety rating.

It is a comprehensive response. On its own terms, it is welcome.

But it sits alongside a fact that this column cannot ignore: the accidents were rising. The data was there. The regulations existed since 2006, updated as recently as 2022. A Share the Road Campaign had run more than five years ago. The concern had been raised in this very chamber before. None of it produced what two deaths, a viral story, and a royal address produced in 38 days.

That is not a coincidence. It is a pattern. And it has a name.

It is called governance inertia.

What Governance Inertia Looks Like

Governance inertia does not mean the system is broken. It does not mean the people in it are incompetent or indifferent. It means the system is designed — consciously or not — to wait rather than anticipate, to respond rather than prevent, to move when pushed rather than when warned.

In physics, an object at rest stays at rest unless an external force acts on it. In Brunei's governance experience, the external force that most reliably moves the system is a visible, public tragedy that reaches the level of national attention. When that happens — and when it is acknowledged at the highest level — the response is often swift, structured, and serious.

The cycling ban announcement on Day Ten is a good example. The response is not hasty or ill-thought-out. It covers legislation, infrastructure, enforcement, and long-term targets. The work behind it clearly existed in some form already — you do not name specific roads for cycling bans and identify per-district cycling routes in 38 days from scratch. The plans were there, or close to there.

What moved them from planning to announcement was not new information. It was a tragedy that made continued inaction politically and morally impossible.

This is what makes governance inertia particularly difficult to talk about honestly. The response — when it finally comes — is usually genuine. The intentions are real. But the question that deserves to be asked, plainly and without rancour, is this:

If the data was there, the regulations were there, and the danger was known —

what exactly was the system waiting for?

 

Brunei recorded 1,163 road accidents in 2024 — up from 1,118 in 2023 and 1,050 in 2022. That is three consecutive years of rising accidents. Fatalities reached 12 in the first half of 2025 alone, compared to seven in the same period of 2024. The trend was not hidden. It was published. The National Road Safety Council has the numbers. The ministries have the numbers. The chamber has been discussing road safety for years.

And yet the dedicated cycling lanes do not exist, yet. The highway ban was not in place on the morning of 17 February. The road where those two cyclists died is one of the roads now named for a ban — which means it was a known high-risk road before that morning, not a surprise that only emerged from the accident investigation.

That is the weight behind Day Ten's announcement. Not scepticism about whether the government will follow through — the commitment expressed on Thursday was clear. But an honest reckoning with the cost of waiting.

Two people who followed the rules, wore their helmets, and cycled on a road they were legally allowed to use are not here to see the ban their deaths helped produce.

What Day Ten Also Brought

Day Ten was not only about cycling. It was also the day the 22nd Legislative Council session reached its formal conclusion — at least for the budget. The Supply Bill 2026/2027 was passed unanimously on Third Reading. The Development Fund Resolution of BND480 million was passed unanimously. Ten days of debate, hundreds of questions, and a BND6.3 billion budget — all of it formally approved in a single morning.

The session opened with a significant Ministerial Statement from the Primary Resources and Tourism Minister — a direct response to the food security debates that have run through this session, and specifically to the rice farmer concerns that Day Nine surfaced so vividly. The statement was detailed and ambitious: a national food sector export drive targeting growth from BND734 million in 2025 to BND1.5 billion by 2035. Egg self-sufficiency already at 112 per cent. A Brunei-Singapore Agritech Food Zone is in development. A Hybrid Rice Research Centre is being negotiated with China. Three tiers of food producers being supported from home-based micro-enterprises all the way to export-ready companies.

It is a serious and well-structured response. It shows that in many areas, the system is trying to move with greater urgency and direction.

But readers who followed Day Nine will remember the three things the farmers actually asked for: more certified seed suppliers, more field visits from ministry officials, and stronger coordination at the grassroots level.

The ministerial statement addressed the export architecture.

The farmers' three requests — which cost very little and require no new law — were not visibly answered.

The big picture was drawn.

The small picture is still waiting to be coloured in.

The Civic Map-Maker — And What the System Did With the Gift

A member of the public designed a better public bus route map. It was clear, practical, and modelled on the kind of maps that work in neighbouring countries. It went viral. People responded positively because it solved, visually and simply, a problem that has frustrated bus users for years.

Dayang Chong Chin Yee raised this in the chamber on Day Ten. She was not just talking about a map. She was asking a structural question: when a citizen offers the system something genuinely useful, what is the mechanism for receiving it? How does civic contribution become civic action? She asked for a formal framework — a structured civic participation pathway — so that public ideas are acknowledged, evaluated, and, where appropriate, acted on.

The minister's response was warm. He said they would reach out to the individual who made the map. That is something.

But it is also, again, a personal response to what should be a structural one.

One minister reaching out to one map-maker is not a civic participation framework.

It is the kind of ad hoc, personality-dependent response that means the next good idea — from someone less visible or less viral — may simply disappear.

This connects directly to what Day Nine named as the session's central challenge.

Feedback is a gift.

But receiving a gift is not the same as building a system that knows how to open it.

The Airport, the Digital Payments, and the Under-16 Problem

Three other issues from the Transport and Infocommunications debate deserve mention.

The Tarus digital payment system is rolling out now — BIBD and Baiduri Bank onboarding soon, QR code phase next. A dedicated Scam Centre helpline has been established. These are concrete, near-term deliverables.

The airport question was significant. A member asked whether Brunei International Airport should be corporatised — taken out of direct government management and run as a semi-independent entity, as several regional airports have done. The minister confirmed that a new Aviation Steering Committee has been formed and is looking at exactly this question. A Low-Cost Carrier committee has also been approved. The target is 2 million passengers through the airport by 2030. These are meaningful ambitions for a country trying to diversify its economy.

The social media question for children under 16 produced the most candid admission of the day. The minister acknowledged that countries like Australia, Malaysia, and the United Kingdom have passed laws restricting social media access for minors. Brunei is studying how to do the same. But there is a fundamental problem: none of the major social media platforms are headquartered in Brunei. The legal reach of any Brunei regulation simply does not extend to companies based abroad.

It is an honest answer to a hard problem.

But it also illustrates something broader — the gap between what a small nation wants to regulate and what it has the structural power to enforce.

 

What the Public Is Really Asking 

   

• For the cycling community: the ban is coming, and the dedicated lanes are promised. But the roads named for banning are the roads cyclists have been using for years because no alternative existed. When will the alternative actually be ready — and what happens to cyclists in the meantime?
  
  

• For the rice farmer: the export strategy is ambitious and well-designed. But the three things asked for — more seed suppliers, more field visits, better grassroots coordination — are small, practical, and affordable. Are they in the plan?
  
  

• For the citizen with a good idea: the minister said he would reach out to the map-maker. That is encouraging. But what about the next good idea, from someone less visible? When will there be a system, not just a gesture?
  
  

• For parents of children under 16: the government acknowledges the danger of unregulated social media access. It acknowledges that other countries have acted. It is studying the options. At what point does studying become deciding — and what protections are in place for children while the study continues?
   

• For every road user in Brunei, accidents rose three years in a row. The data was published. The trend was visible. It took a specific, fatal, viral event to produce the comprehensive response announced on Day Ten. What would it take to make the trend itself — not the tragedy — the trigger for action?

 

 The Signal of the Day — and of the Session

 

Day Ten was the day the budget passed and the session formally concluded its main business. It is also the day that most clearly illustrates the governance pattern this series has been tracing since Day One.

 

The pattern is not malice. It is not indifference. The government of Brunei demonstrably cares about its people. The budget is large, the welfare system is real, and the ministers who spoke across ten days were, for the most part, engaged and honest. When the system finally moves, it often moves seriously.

 

But governance inertia has a cost that falls unevenly.

 

It falls hardest on the people who encounter the problem before it becomes a crisis — the cyclists who rode those highways for years before the ban, the parents who needed childcare for a four-year-old this year not next, the farmers who needed a fourth certified seed supplier before the export strategy was announced, the welfare families whose assistance has been calculated on 2015 prices for over a decade.

 

For each of them, the system's eventual response is welcome.

But it arrives after the cost has already been paid — sometimes in money, sometimes in years, sometimes in lives.

 

DMAO has been asking throughout this session: who is still responsible after the answer is given?

 

Day Ten adds a companion question that the cycling story makes unavoidable:

Who is responsible before the crisis makes the answer necessary?

 

Because the real measure of governance is not how quickly a system responds to a tragedy. It is whether the system is structured to prevent the tragedy from being the thing that finally moves it.

 

The data was there. The trend was visible. The roads were known. The campaign had run. The regulations existed.

 

Two people cycled out on a February morning in their helmets and cycling gear, on a road they were legally allowed to use, in a country that had all the information it needed to protect them.

 

The question is not whether the government will now do the right thing.

On the evidence of Day Ten, it will.

 

The harder question is whether the system can learn to do the right thing before it has no choice.

 

 

 

The 22nd Legislative Council session continues Saturday, 28 March 2026, at 9.30am.

The budget has been passed. The questions have not.

 

 

 

KopiTalk LegCo Tracker covers the 22nd Legislative Council session from a public-first perspective.

What was said, what mattered, and what the public is still waiting for.

Day Nine: Feedback Is a Gift. So, Why Is No One Opening It?

KOPITALK LEGCO TRACKER  |  22nd Legislative Council Session

 

 

 

Day Nine: Feedback Is a Gift.

So, Why Is No One Opening It?

KopiTalk with MHO  •  Wednesday, 25 March 2026  •  22nd LegCo, Day Nine  |  Morning and Afternoon Sessions

 

 

She visited the rice farmers. She sat with them. She listened. They told her exactly what is wrong — and exactly what would help fix it. She brought those words into the chamber and called them what they are: a gift. Day Nine of LegCo. The nation has a plan for almost everything. The question is whether it is listening to the people already doing the work.

 

 

 

She did not send a survey. She did not wait for a report. She went to the fields.

 

Dayang Hajah Rosmawatty binti Haji Abdul Mumin visited rice farmers across Brunei Muara, Tutong, and Belait. She sat with them and held a dialogue. She came back with their words in her hands — not as statistics, but as the practical things they told her needed fixing. Then she brought those words into the Legislative Council chamber and ended her contribution with a line that deserves to sit near the centre of this entire session:

 

Feedback is a gift.

 

Three words. But they carry the weight of nine days of debate.

 

Because this session has spent nine days and a BND6.3 billion budget discussing what the country needs. And again and again, the people who know the answer most clearly are not always the ministers in the chamber. They are the farmers in the fields, the parents managing school runs alone, the families in Temburong driving past the one EV charging station that only works if you own the right brand of car. They are already giving their feedback — in their choices, their struggles, and their workarounds. The question is whether the system is treating it like the gift it says it is.

 

Day Nine was the first sitting after Hari Raya. The Yang Di-Pertua opened with a call for semangat berkobar-kobar — a burning spirit — to finish the work ahead. The session covered two ministries in Question Time and four in the Committee Stage across morning and afternoon sittings. It was dense, detailed, and at times candid in ways that earlier days were not. And woven through all of it was a single question that kept returning in different forms:

 

who is the system actually built for?

 

What Was Raised

 

The farmers who are already doing it right — and what they need

 

Brunei imports over 90 per cent of its rice. That figure alone should concentrate minds. And it has — the national rice self-sufficiency rate has improved from 4.7 per cent in 2017 to around 8 per cent in 2024. That improvement did not come from a policy document. It came from farmers who showed up, planted, and delivered. The top 20 farmers are earning between BND200,000 and close to BND1 million a year. The model works when it is properly supported.

 

But here is the paradox Rosmawatty brought into the chamber. The rice production project under the national development plan has a planned allocation of BND1.82 million. In the last financial year, only BND36,000 of that was spent.

 

That is not a rounding error.

 

That is a food security project running at about two per cent of its intended budget.

 

And when she sat with the farmers and asked them what they needed, they did not ask for grand policy changes. They asked for three things.

 

— More certified seed suppliers — right now, there are only three in the entire country, and supply is not enough to meet the programme's targets.

 

— More field visits from ministry officials — not inspections, but genuine engagement, where someone comes and listens to what is working and what is not.

 

— Stronger field leadership, so farmers at the grassroots level have a coordinator who can help solve problems without waiting months for a response.

 

These are not impossible things to provide. They do not require a new law or a major policy redesign.

 

They require attention.

 

Now place that alongside this: the government is preparing for Visit Brunei Year 2027 with a tourism budget that has nearly doubled from BND1.9 million to BND3.9 million. There is a task force for education tourism. A visit to Singapore is planned within two weeks to discuss bringing students here. Dedicated marketing pushes into North America, Europe, and the Middle East are underway. Health tourism packages are being developed with JPMC. Islamic tourism packages are already in motion.

 

None of that is wrong. Tourism matters. Economic diversification is urgent.

 

But the contrast is difficult to ignore.

 

Big ambitions tend to attract budgets, task forces, and movement.

 

The farmer growing rice to feed the country is still waiting on three seed suppliers and a project barely moving on paper.

 

The nation says food security is a priority.

 

The budget, at least for now, suggests a different tempo.

 

 

The model works when it is properly supported. The question is why support seems to arrive faster for large, visible initiatives than for the people already growing the food.

 

The child left between noon and five o'clock

 

Awang Amran bin Haji Maidin raised something on Day Nine that every working parent in Brunei will recognise immediately.

 

Current regulations only allow registered daycare centres to accept children up to three years old. Kindergarten runs half a day. That leaves a gap — children aged three to five who are too old for registered daycare but too young for a full school day. Working parents, particularly those without family nearby to help, are filling that gap with informal arrangements.

 

Here is the irony.

 

The regulation was designed to protect children. But in practice, it is pushing families toward arrangements that may offer less protection, not more. Because a registered, supervised daycare centre — the kind with trained staff, safety standards, and government oversight — cannot legally take their child. So they find someone who can. And that someone operates outside any regulatory framework at all.

 

Amran asked for the policy to be reviewed. He suggested a new category — after-school care for children aged four to six, with clear safety standards and supervision requirements.

 

It is a practical, common-sense solution.

 

The answer, however, did not yet offer the clarity many parents would have hoped for.

 

And so, for now, the parents are still the ones solving it.

 

One charging station. One brand. One resort.

 

Brunei has approximately 2,000 PHEV and EV vehicles registered as of January 2026. There are 40 charging stations and 45 charging points across the country. The transition to electric vehicles is real, and the numbers are growing.

 

In Temburong — the district the government is actively developing as an eco-tourism destination, the district connected to the mainland by a BND1.6 billion bridge — there is one EV charging station. It is at The Abode Resort and Spa. It only works for specific vehicle brands.

 

That is not a small detail.

 

That is the gap between a national ambition and the infrastructure that makes it usable.

 

If you drive to Temburong in an EV that is not the right brand, you are effectively on your own.

 

The minister acknowledged this and said more chargers will come as usage grows. That is probably true. But usage usually grows when infrastructure exists — not only after it does.

 

The digital ambition — and what sits underneath it

 

Day Nine's Question Time was almost entirely about digital transformation.

 

Public service satisfaction is at 84.4 per cent. Online service satisfaction at 79.2 per cent. Instagram reach for religious content increased elevenfold in a single year. A locally-built Brunei game, Tikus Tales, won silver at the ASEAN Digital Awards 2025. The e-sports team won seven medals, including gold at SUKMA 2024. The GenAI handbook for education was launched in September 2025. Sixty-six religious services have been mapped for digitisation.

 

Taken at face value, it is the picture of a country moving steadily into a digital future.

 

But the same sitting also heard a member raise the fact that the digital signatures law has a section — Part 10, governing Certification Authorities — that has not yet been enforced. The e-stamping system has been running since December 2022, but business processes at the land department and court registry still require people to show up at a counter.

 

And across the Committee Stage, the pattern that has run through this session kept reappearing:

 

The system is increasingly good at launching, mapping, and measuring activity.

 

It is still working on measuring whether that activity has meaningfully changed daily life.

 

That is not a dismissal of the effort. The effort is real and visible.

 

It is a question about what the numbers are actually measuring.

 

84.4 per cent customer satisfaction in a public service survey is a meaningful figure. But it sits alongside a rice project running at two per cent of its allocation and a childcare gap that working parents are solving informally.

 

The digital infrastructure is growing.

 

The question is whether it is reaching the people who need it most.

 

What the Answers Revealed

 

Day Nine had a different quality to its answers than the pre-Raya sittings. Ministers were more relaxed. Some exchanges had genuine warmth. The Yang Di-Pertua's remark at the opening — that he hoped members would return with a burning spirit — set a tone that held through most of the day.

 

The Primary Resources and Tourism Minister was candid about the export initiative. Twenty-nine companies have registered interest in exporting to Singapore. The domestic market is limited — the minister said so plainly.

 

But the feedback from the farming dialogue raised something the answer did not fully settle: you cannot export at scale if you cannot first grow at scale. And you cannot grow at scale if your seed supply is bottlenecked at three certified suppliers.

 

The Development Minister was honest about the limits of the chamber as a venue for certain kinds of questions. He endorsed the Yang Di-Pertua's gentle redirect to members who raised very specific local infrastructure issues — flood drainage in Tutong, water supply gaps in Brunei Muara — suggesting these are often better pursued through district offices and direct ministerial channels than through a budget committee sitting.

 

That is fair.

 

But it also points to a structural reality: the people most affected by these issues often do not know those channels exist, or do not feel confident using them. The chamber remains the one place where they know their representative is being heard.

 

The Religious Affairs Minister's response to halal certification deserves attention. There are tens of thousands of pending halal certification applications. The minister acknowledged this. A member proposed a dedicated halal authority to help clear the backlog and position Brunei more competitively in a global halal market worth between USD2.3 and USD2.8 trillion.

The idea is not new.

 

But the scale of the opportunity — and the scale of the backlog — are both growing. The distance between them is not closing fast enough.

 

The Culture, Youth and Sports Minister's response to the PKBN youth programme was one of the most direct of the day. Pehin Suyoi suggested extending the programme to job-seeking graduates as a structured six-month bridge — not just patriotism and character, but targeted skills, digital literacy, industry exposure, and mentorship.

 

The minister welcomed the idea but noted the cost is BND3,500 per participant.

 

That is not a small amount.

 

But it is also considerably less than the cost of a graduate who stays unemployed for another year.

 

What the Public Is Really Asking

 

— For the rice farmer: the feedback has been given. The seeds are insufficient, the visits are too rare, and the field coordination is weak. These are solvable problems. When will they be solved?

 

— For the working parent: the childcare gap is not a new discovery. Parents have been solving it informally for years, often in ways that offer their children less protection than a registered centre would. What is the timeline for a policy review?

 

— For the EV driver in Temburong: the bridge cost BND1.6 billion. The charging infrastructure was not integrated in any meaningful way. When investment and daily usability are this far apart, what is the coordination mechanism meant to close that gap?

 

— For the halal entrepreneur: the global halal market is worth trillions. Brunei's certification is internationally respected. But the backlog is tens of thousands of applications deep. Every month that passes is a month of lost opportunity.

 

— For the young person waiting for a job: the PKBN costs BND3,500 per participant to run a programme that, by the minister's own account, produces measurable, employer-confirmed improvements in attitude, discipline, and work readiness. Why is the programme not bigger?

 

The Signal of the Day

 

Day Nine was the day the session came back from Hari Raya and found the same questions still waiting.

 

Not because nothing had been done.

 

But because the work that matters most — the slow, consistent, field-level work of listening and responding — does not pause for public holidays.

 

The paradox Rosmawatty surfaced is this:

 

The country's food security strategy depends on farmers.

 

Not on investors, not on task forces, not on marketing campaigns — but on the people who wake up and plant things.

 

And those people are already giving the system clear, specific, actionable feedback about what they need to do more of — and what they are already doing well. The top 20 are earning up to a million ringgit a year. The model is proven. The bottlenecks are known.

 

Meanwhile, a tourism budget nearly doubles. A team flies to Singapore within two weeks. New markets are being opened in Europe and North America. These things are not wrong. They are exactly what economic diversification looks like in motion.

 

But the contrast reveals something real about how urgency is often allocated.

 

Large, visible, internationally-facing initiatives tend to move quickly.

 

Small, domestic, ground-level needs — three more certified seed suppliers, a policy update for childcare, a working charger in Temburong — often wait in a queue that seems to have no visible front.

 

DMAO has been asking across this entire session: who is still responsible after the answer is given?

 

Day Nine offers a sharper version of that question.

 

Not just who is responsible —

but who is listening?

 

Not only to the questions in the chamber,

but to the answers that are already out there — in the fields, in the homes, in the car that parks at Temburong's one charging station and finds it does not work for them.

 

The feedback is being given. Every day.

 

By the farmers who grow food.

 

By the parents who patch together childcare.

 

By the drivers navigating roads and systems not yet built for how people actually live.

 

Whether it is received as a gift — that is the measure of what this session will have been worth.

 

 

 

The session continues Thursday, 26 March 2026, at 9.00am.

 

The rice is still growing.

The feedback is still waiting.

The gift is still on the table.

 

And the real test is no longer whether the country knows what needs fixing.

It is whether the system is willing to keep saying feedback is valuable — while leaving so much of it unopened.

 

 

 

KopiTalk LegCo Tracker covers the 22nd Legislative Council session from a public-first perspective.

What was said, what mattered, and what the public is still waiting for.