The Cost of Waiting

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

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

KopiTalk with MHO

By Malai Hassan Othman

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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