Seeing Brunei As The Least Corrupt Country
By Ignatius Stephen

Bandar Seri Begawan - "I want to see Brunei as the least corrupt country in the world."

That is the aim of Brunei's new Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) Acting Director, 37-year-old Pengiran Kasmirhan bin Pengiran Haji Tahir, a former Deputy Public Prosecutor.

He is yet another example of the new breed of young Bruneians armed with sufficient vision and enthusiasm determined to steer Brunei to be a place fit for his children and his children's children.

Indeed he feels strongly about the future. When an interviewer asked him the other day, what motivates him to come to work everyday, he had this to say: "My kids. Everyday when I send them to school I see children in droves.

"I keep asking myself, `Will these kids be employed one day? Will we be able to provide them with enough jobs?'

"I always remind myself that we will only be able to guarantee them with jobs if we have a stable government and country. "A government which has a strong foundation in integrity and which is corruption-free will be sure of economic and political stability.

"When we have a stable government and country, the economy will flourish and investors will come in and there will be jobs. "A country plagued by corruption will have difficulty in attracting foreign investment.

"This is where I see that my job is so vital to ensure that we have a corrupt-free government that prides itself on high integrity and good governance.

"We have to remind ourselves that we do not own Brunei but we borrow it from our children.

"It is therefore our duty to put in place a clean government which places integrity and good governance high on its agenda so that our children will have a better future here.

"So my job is basically to remind and ensure the more than 40,000 government employees as well as the key private sectors that they remain incorruptible."

But you may ask who is this young man picked to head a vital unit of the government?

Pengiran Kasmirhan spent his early years in Singapore on a government scholarship.

After finishing '0" levels, he entered Singapore National Junior College.

"That was my proudest moment in Singapore as the entry requirement was very tough. In those days, you needed a minimum of 5 A's and I managed to get 6 A's and 2 B's."

He shared the high sense of pride at the college "as we were always told that the college produced many President Scholars.

"In fact the current Singapore prime minister was one of them.

"However, I only spent less than six months there as I got a chance for another scholarship to study A level law on a one-year programme in the UK. I took up the opportunity as I had always wanted to study law."

After passing his A level, he studied law at Leicester's De Mon Fort University (formerly .Leicester Polytechnic) for three years and immediately after that entered the Inner Temple Inns of Court to pursue the Barrister-At-Law examination for external students.

"Just one week before my 22nd birthday I joined the Attorney General's Chambers in Brunei and was appointed a Deputy Public Prosecutor. "Apart from handling criminal prosecution, I also dealt with civil litigation and acted as legal adviser to the government.

"I specialised on intellectual property and ICT laws as well as public international law. I was appointed head of the International Law- Division in 2000, specialising on public international law."

Since May he was made acting Director of the Bureau. What is the ACB's strategy to ensure Brunei is corrupt free?

ACB adopts a three-pronged strategy in fighting corruption. Strong deterrence, continuing awareness on the dangers of corruption and adopting a prevention strategy by way of ensuring opportunities for corruption are closed and detected earlier.

"When I say strong deterrence, this is our core mission. ACB exists to enforce the Prevention of Corruption Act," he said.

"As a deterrent measure we will need to go down hard on corrupt officials and punish them according to the law. “We must have strong convictions and determination to beat abuse of power and corrupt practices”.

"It would be difficult to live up to these good intentions unless we are determined to deal with all transgressors without exceptions and without fear or favour. "This will send a strong signal to every government official as well as the private sector that we adopt a zero tolerance against corruption and abuse of power.

"However, we must have a continuing programme to remind everyone on the evils of corruption and the virtues of upholding integrity and honesty.

"This is our second strategy. We have put in place a continuing programme to promote integrity and honesty both in the public and private sector. My predecessor has put up a very good programme on this and I will continue the programme.

"We are currently working with the private sector under a Smart Partnership Programme (PPP) to promote this culture of good business ethics and an anti-corruption programme such as getting airtime with our RTB to show the dangers of corruption.

"We also continue to hold roadshows with the public and private sector on every available opportunity that we have to inform the public, and government officials alike on the importance of upholding integrity and good business ethics.

"Our third strategy is on corruption prevention.

"This is our newest approach on how we want to tackle corruption in the country.

"Basically, we want to be able to understand and identify the root causes of corruption in the public sector and make recommendations on how we can close any corrupt opportunities that exist in any business processes of any government department," he added.

He was discussing with his officers on drawing up key programme and initiatives to support the three-pronged strategy. "That will form part, of the overall strategic plan of the Bureau to achieve the target I mentioned," Pengiran Kasmirhan said.

"I want to see Brunei rank high as the least corrupt country in the world in the Transparency International Corruption Perception Index. Foreign Investors actually use the CPI as one of the tools in their investment risks analysis before deciding to invest in any particular country," he added.

What do you think is the major cause of corruption here?

"I don't think I will be able to explain to you the causes in this short interview.

"However I should mention that corruption is a result of poor governance, especially lack of transparency and accountability.

"So any attempt to fight corruption or any form of abuse of power for that matter must begin from this premise. "Any form of abuse of power like corruption occurs when there is too much monopoly and discretion in exercise of authority and lack of accountability on the exercise of that authority.

"I believe that if you remove the monopoly and discretion and introduce accountability in any business process of a department, it will be a major step to reduce corrupt opportunities.

"I give you one good example which happens to be a real case in another country.

"Any patient who wished to see a doctor in one clinic of this country must go through a nurse at the reception. So any patient wanting to have a better priority to see any doctor must pay a bribe to the nurse at the reception.

"The nurse basically has control on the access to the doctors at this clinic.

"She has the monopoly of power and absolute discretion in deciding who has access to the doctors to the clinic. One simple solution that was introduced was an automatic queuing system and a notice board showing the doctors on duty for the day.

"You see, they actually remove corrupt opportunities at the clinic by a simple solution of removing the nurse's monopoly of power.

"Every department must examine every business process that potentially exposes them to corruption and remove this monopoly of power or discretion.

"I do realise that exercise of discretion is sometimes a necessary evil for instance in approving or not approving a licence or permit.

"However they should draw up clearly the rules on how this discretion should be exercised. In short any exercise of power or authority must be drawn up with a clear and transparent set of rules."  -- Courtesy of Borneo Bulletin

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