KUALA LUMPUR: Regulatory Impact Analysis (RIA) application incorporated into government departments and ministries by Malaysia Productivity Corporation (MPC) is a long-term investment in improving regulations, says an expert.
The RIA application consultant for MPC, Jacobs, Cordova and Associates Director Dr Cesar Cordova, said nevertheless there will be results.
“Some regulations can be produced fast, but to clean up the regulatory framework with a brand new generation of regulators might require some time,” he told Bernama in an interview at a seminar on Enhancing Quality of New Regulations here recently.
On seeing the actual results of RIA and its potential to raise Malaysia’s World Bank Doing Business rankings in 2013, Cordoca said it is not going to be rapidly connected as RIA is more of a medium-term move that will improve only but surely through time and is not a quick win solution.
“World Bank’s Doing Business 2013 is a quick win and RIA aims to change the regulators’ minds and ways of working, so it tends to take some time to produce the effects of better regulatory governance, more tuned in, evidence-based regulators.
“RIA is going to be piloted, in the next few months, by a number of ministries depending on the decision by the Malaysian government,” Cordova said.
“I believe, based on the pilot, they are able to better target, proportionate the effort and how RIA is going to be deployed.
“We hope Malaysia will use the RIA application in the near future and apply it throughout the government ministries,” he said. — Bernama
As in any ambitious project, there will be skeptics, but at the end of the day, there are typical challenges that other countries have faced and are able to overcome, he said.
Although every change and reform has a transition cost and learning curve, political will could facilitate the deployment efforts, he added. — Bernama