Need to formalise a risk management process
Our country has gone through enough debacles for decades due to bureaucratic bungling. Recalling what we have gone through in the past and how we reacted is not intended to be discussed in this article to make this unnecessarily a long topic. Many readers who have different political orientations will intentionally or unintentionally label me as a pro or an anti-Government ally depending on the intensity of the issue and responsible regime that would otherwise be reported. Hence, how we suffered as a country due to lack of mitigation plans is not elaborated in this article.
Security, Social, Economic, Environmental and International relations are key factors that the Government should manage to safeguard all born and unborn living beings in the country. Whilst ITC (information, technology and communication) is a new area, education, food safety, health, transport etc used to be classified under social factors. A severe impact will be felt by all living beings in the country if the above factors are affected either positively or negatively. Management of these factors is currently being done by a large contingent of public sector officers attached to numerous ministries, departments, state-owned enterprises and local government authorities that are governed by leaders who get elected democratically
or otherwise.
Further elaboration of the current state of the country and the contribution that the public sector along with leaders had been making to the country is a no brainer. As such what is now required is for us as professionals to come forward and contribute to the development of the public sector without thinking of personal gains.
What do we need?
The country should create a separate centralized unit that identifies, collects and monitors aspects that impede achievement of objectives related to factors highlighted in the preceding paragraphs. Centralised unit with the consultation of the Cabinet and the President should assess and define acceptable levels of risks to the national security, society, economy, environment, international relations and ITC.
All ministries or departments should appoint a chief risk officer to further map all potential risks for their organisations. All assessed risks should be supported with a risk mitigation action plan along with a high-level budget. Though the above sounds like a simple mechanism, this will entail a substantial level of efforts by many officials.
For our country to prosper we need our leaders to do the right thing in the correct way at the right time. Verbalization of strategic decisions with measurable and timebound actions would be much more successful even during crisis situations that are anticipated and mitigated.
Other than the national security risk mitigation plans, the general public should be privy to all other risk mitigation plans to ensure that leaders and public sector officials are taking enough and appropriate measures to safeguard the wellbeing of all the living beings of the country. It has become one of the most critical matters that the Government should consider implementing immediately, in order to provide much required comfort to the citizens of this country.
(The writer is a Partner , Business Advisory and Digital Services at BDO)