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| YAB Pehin Sri Abdul Taib Mahmud launching the Sejiwa Senada Programme |
The program of Sejiwa Senada can be regarded as a noble effort to achieve a certain transformation to promote a rapport between the people and the machinery of the government. The program comes about with the realisation among the leadership of the civil service of the necessity to promote rapport with the people to enable them to benefit from their services.
Obviously, the program Sejiwa Senada can be considered as an important machinery and a tool for the Government to help the people.
This program Sejiwa Senada (One soul one rythm) is a manifestation of the fact that the leadership of the Civil Service, as frontliners in dealing with the people, is sensitive to their needs and requirements of the people. Obviously, they have been using their knowledge and experience through the process of interactions with the people to finalise and give good services to the people.
Obviously, this is the way that leaders and officers of the Civil Service in the State has been pursuing efforts to adapt themselves their environment in order to give efficient service to the people. Certainly, their attitude has differed a great deal as compared to those before State gained Independence through the formation of Malaysia on September 16, 1963. Then the objective of the administration was only to maintain peace, uphold justice and create awareness among the people of the benefits from development programs being carried by the government.
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| YAB Pehin Sri trying his hand at the blowpipe during the Sejiwa Senada in Lawas |
However, such approach has become grossly insufficient now when taking into consideration that the Government has to intensify efforts consistent with the objective of the struggle to upgrade the standard of living of the people. As the days go by, the people begin to know more and more about the benefits that they can get from development and want the government to make conscientious efforts to spread it fairly to them.
With that kind of preception, the roles and responsibilities of the government whether at the State or the Federal levels, keep on expanding. The government has to do the utmost in implementing all the development programs for the people in the transformation to move forward. However, this kind of transformation cannot be carried out without a close working relationship between the people and the machinery of the government.
After the State gained Independence on September 16,1963, internal self government on July 22, 1963, the State government had to focus not merely on debating political issues, which were normal, but to institute positive changes for the people. Obviously,the bigger issue was to ensure that the people must be led to achieve greater success in raising their standard of living. The benefits that could be accrued by the people might not necessarily depend on the machinery of the government alone but their own initiatives and efforts.
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| CM and DCM trying some of the acitivities at the Sejiwa Senada Programme with other participants |
Of course, the process of spreading the benefits of development, as a matter of policy, must be made fairly to ensure that the feeling of dissatisfaction will not emerge among certain groups. The government must avoid having a situation where a group of beggers, in fighting for alms, create vilolent disturbances among them. In this regard, the people, on their part must realise that no government in the world can discharge its duty and responsbility 100% perfect.
What ever objective that the government wants to achieve takes time and sometimes difficult to achieve due to various factors. However, the delays must be explained to the people talks and discussions with the people; hence the government through its machinery must have a rapport with the rakyat. In this connection, even elected representatives of the people must come down to meet the people.
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| Visitors at the Sejwia Senada Programme |
There are a least three groups of people that must be persuaded to be involved in the process of development. The first group comprises of people who are yet to understand the process of development and still hoping for assistance from the government. They should endeavor to improve their understanding through listening to radio, reading newspapers and exposure to lots of information about the community to motivate them to think properly of ways to interact with the government.
The second group comprises of people who understand the process but still hoping to get benefits and profits from the government without making serious effforts to work for them. As the adage says ”luck does not come rolling on its own”. For this reason, they must be helped to understand that they have to play their roles towards achieving the desired objectives. The third group comprises of people who understand the process, have the capability to play their roles in exploiting opportunities but they still expect support and assistance from the Governmnent.
The government takes cognizance of the level of realisation of the people, who are able to benefits from their understanding of the process of development. Essentially, it is matter of giving the right information to the people. However, the government has to face a more complicated situation in disseminating relevant information from the massive flow of information from various sources that can influence the minds of the people.
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| Government agencies' booth at Sejiwa Senada Programme |
Generally, NGOs are being viewed as having the tendency to protest what ever decisions being made by the authorities. Hence, the people must weigh properly whether to support or not to support their views. The people must accept the fact that the world is exposed to all kinds of information whether they can be considered as healthy or otherwise; the information may benefit certain groups only. For this reason, it is important for the government machinery to interact with the people so that its efforts to help the people can achieve their objectives. What ever the government does for the people must benefit them.
The objective of planning for development is to benefit all people and not certain groups only. For this reason, the group, who understands and is knowledgeable about the benefits of development, tends to benefits more from it through active involvement in the process. They will be able to come up quite fast. They will be able to expand and become richer through active involvement in the process of development.
It is regrettable that such scenario is emerging now as the people, who are clever and able to understand the process, take full advantage of opportunities being created by the government development polices and programs and move further ahead. For this reason, the civil service and the people must move forward in the same soul and rythm. The government has to play bigger roles as the development program becomes more sophisticated to carry out.
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| CM and his wife meeting the people at Sejiwa Senada Miri |
Though in the initial stage the first and second groups can be considered as ignorant of the government’s development policies and programs, after some time they will pick up enough courage to demand for their rights. The question of how to help them will create a bigger problem for the government namely the problem that comes from slowly rising expectations with no response.
For this reason, managing expectations must become part and parcel of the development exercise. For example, the government has to take care of the second group, which is always hoping for assistance from the government. It must also anticipate more problems cropping up as the planning for development gets bigger to move the people and the State forward. Besides, it must realize it will not be able to solve problems just by trying to fulfill every demand of the community. This is a fact of life.
Hence, appropriate focus must be given to the implementation of diverse development programs for the people. In other words, development must be carried out not only to fulfill the requirements of certain groups but all groups. This must be communicated to the people, who must know that all efforts of development are for their interests.
Obviously, it is important for the government to interact with the people to understand and minimize their problems. If the people consider problems as not their business but those of the government, they are actually passing the entire burden to the Government. It is impossible for the government to solve all their problems.
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| Visitors of Sejiwa Senada programme |
Regrettably, the people tend to hold big demonstrations to press for their demands. They do not take into consideration what can happen even if the government becomes bankrupt as a result of their action. They consider holding big demonstrations as a way to fulfill their rights in pressing for their demand. As a developing country, Malaysia is not being spared of problems of limited resources.
Essentially, the people must be given relevant information relating to resources, whether they relate to manpower development, finance and others that have their limit for implementing certain development projects. Besides, the people including politicians in the Administration cannot regard problems, though they cannot be solved at one time, as disruptions. Instead, any problems that cannot be solved must be given the explaination.
In this regards, elected representatives must be ready to explain to the people promises that they have been made to them. In other words, they must not just to make promises but be ready to explain if they are yet to be fulfilled. They must be ready to explain why the promises are yet to be fulfilled or cannot be fulfilled so that the people will not be kept waiting for them to be fulfilled.
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| Ministers launching the Sejiwa Senada Programme |
Basically, a problem should not be made an issue unless a group does not want to carry out its responsibility. In other words, people who do not want to solve problems should be blamed for not carrying out their duties and responsibilities toward the people. Advisablly, problems should be channelled to related agencies. For example, issues relating to Land and Survey department, Forestry department and JKR must be solved at the level of the respective departments. All of these depend on the harmonious relationship between the people and government departments.
Basically, any problems cannot be solved if they are referred to people, who do not have the power to solve them, but have the interests to interfere with them. Even a small problem can become a big one and a job that can be done, will not be done. Therefore, to overcome a problem, it must be directed to a correct channel that has the right way to solve it.
Obviously, the Government needs a good relationship and has mutual trust with the people. Such relationship can be equated to the relationship within a family and like sharing a job on the basis of partnership. If we do not trust other people, they will not trust us in return.
Generally, government officers have been showing great interests in trying to help the people; they are quite organised now. They are all professional people, at least professional enough to understand that problem is part and parcel of solving, introducing, adjusting to and coping with changes on ground in a more accurate way.
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| Sejiwa Senada Programme is an effort to promote a rapport between the people and the machinery of the government |
The program of Sejiwa Senada must be continuous as problem is everyday affair in the life of development implementation. It is impossible for any government, even how clever and rich it may be, to implement all projects without facing any problems. For example, it is a challenge to introduce new ideas that need explaination and need time to be understood by the people.
benuasains
*Photos Source:
http://sarawakupdate.com
http://blog.mpc.gov.my
http://www.penerangan.gov.my
landsurvey.sarawak.gov.my
http://tettyias.blogspot.com/
google.com images
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