Civil service of M'sia, S'pore play crucial role in realising both govts' aspirations - Ali Hamsa

The civil service of both Malaysia and Singapore pay a crucial role towards realising their governments' aspirations, said Chief Secretary to the Government of Malaysia Tan Sri Dr Ali Hamsa.

"We engage, negotiate and ultimately resolve both countries' problems amicably while gaining mutual benefits," he said at the 39th Public Service Games and 8th Joint Seminar for Public Service Leaders of Singapore and Malaysia here today.

"This is made possible because of our close rapport, understanding and mutual respect for one another," he added.

Also present were Head of Civil Service of the Government of Singapore Tan Sri Peter Ong, Permanent Secretaries, Secretaries-General and senior officials from the civil service of Singapore and Malaysia.

Earlier, Singapore Deputy Prime Minister and Coordinating Minister for National Security Teo Chee Hean had delivered the welcoming remarks.

Ali noted that Malaysia and Singapore have enjoyed continued success in nation building partly as a result of the close cooperation between both countries.

"Our Prime Ministers have often emphasised on this special relationship and the need to always nurture it, so that it may grow even stronger than ever," he said.

According to Ali, the annual event had always provided a platform for senior officials from both sides to share knowledge, information, and exchange views, pertaining to issues of common interest and concerns in a more relaxed and informal setting.

The Joint Seminar is held annually and hosted alternately by Malaysia and Singapore and was first held in 2008 in Malaysia.

The objectives of the Seminar are amongst others to exchange ideas towards the advancement of the public sector of both countries.

Ali highlighted that it was becoming an ever challenging task to advocate, facilitate and deliver services to the people.

"The 'rakyat' (people) today expect government services and processes to be more efficient and flexible and the National Blue Ocean Strategy (NBOS) is Malaysia's way of responding to this challenge," he said.

In essence, Ali said the NBOS breaks down silos between government agencies and comes up with new and creative ideas in providing services to the public in a low cost, high impact and rapidly executed manner.

To complement NBOS, Ali said several digital strategies to leverage on existing initiatives and create new opportunities in the digital economy have been devised.

"The Malaysian public sector ICT Strategic Plan is envisioned to use ICT towards a citizen-centric and whole-of-government Approach Public Service," he said.

In the long run, Ali noted that the Plan will provide seamless online services to the people, business and government through a connected public service.

"Social, mobile, analytical and big data, radical openness and trust or S.M.A.R.T. government, is now the government's main transformation engine which will transform the public service to be more dynamic and responsive.

"Our public service will formulate a comprehensive framework that allows the online approach to complement our existing policies and programmes, cultivating a citizen-centric social media mind-set among the Malaysian public, officials, proliferating open data among agencies, encouraging cross-agency data sharing, and leveraging on big data analytics," he said.

Ali also took the opportunity to record Malaysia's appreciation to the Teo who attended the first ever International Conference on Blue Ocean Strategy in Putrajaya in August this year. -- BERNAMA