"The Brunei government has and will continue to give high priority to the development of its human resource with the aim of producing skilled, disciplined, well educated, motivated and versatile civil servants who can adapt quickly to a changing environment," the report read.
Also in the report, Brunei Darussalam states that it aspires to improve the transparency of government policies and regulations and to improve public access to information. The implementation of e-government initiatives such as "EG21 Governance and Services Online" is expected to increase the overall transparency of the Brunei Civil Service.
On future governance, while Brunei aims to continuously improve its governance to be on par with other countries and to remain competitive, Brunei stated that it hopes to have the institutional capacity to implement strategic planning, respond rapidly and focus on achieving results in order to transform its oil-and-gas-based economy into a more diversified and knowledge-based economy.
"To carry out this task, it is imperative that Brunei Darussalam modernises the public service and make it more efficient in carrying out its functions, roles and responsibilities in a way that will facilitate national development," the report states.
To attain this, it requires a commitment to bring about a paradigm shift in civil service roles and responsibilities as well as the system of management and work culture to create a more transparent, dynamic, responsive, accountable, effective and efficient civil service.
"To ensure this transformation, Brunei Darussalam recognizes that strong and effective leadership is required to initiate and maintain the momentum of reform and steer the country toward sustainable economic development.
"The Prime Minister's Office will continue to play an important role in providing effective administrative leadership to all ministers and departments. Civil service reforms and the various initiatives to modernise the civil service will continue to be led by the permanent secretary in the Prime Minister's Office as chairman of the Public Service Committee and Civil Service Review Committee," the report added.
Brunei also feels that maintaining commitment from stakeholders in the reform process will be a major challenge. It added consultation, dialogue process, coordination and facilitation with relevant stakeholders in the public, private and the community will need to be heightened to ensure relevant inputs are made available for the government to make informed decisions and promote shared ownership in the reform process.
"The government also recognises the need to establish an appropriate body to ensure policies are well planned and properly implemented amongst the key government agencies," it said.
Autor(en)/Author(s): Sonia K.
Quelle/Source: Brunei Direct, 07.09.2007
