KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 9 — Asean must undertake structural reforms to strengthen its secretariat, said Asean Business Advisory Council chairman Tan Sri Nazir Razak.
He said there is a need to rebalance the power dynamic between the rotating chairmanship and the Secretary-General if the bloc hopes to remain effective in an era of shifting global powers.
The bloc’s current governance model is ‘dysfunctional’ and hampers Asean’s ability to enforce decisions.
Currently, the Secretary-General serves a five-year term, but authority lies with a chairman who changes annually.
“In corporate parlance, I always say that Asean is dysfunctional because we have an Asean secretariat. The Secretary-General is the chief executive officer; he has a five-year tenure.
“Then the chairman is the chairing country, and the chairman has a one-year tenure. But yet all power is with the chairman.
“If you had a company like that, it would be completely dysfunctional,” Nazir said in his speech during the opening of the Selangor Asean Business Conference (SABC) today.
He added that more power should be vested in the secretariat to allow for continuity and capacity.
Nazir noted that the imbalance is not due to member states deliberately monopolising authority but rather because the Secretariat lacks the resources to execute its responsibilities.
“It is neither of their fault. It is not as if the chairman wants to do it, but the chairman has to do it because the chief executive officer does not have the capacity to do it.
“It is a structural problem. You cannot blame anyone,” he told the press later on the sidelines of the forum.
The issue is most evident in the enforcement of supply chain commitments and the reduction of non-tariff barriers.
“The main problem with supply chains is how to enforce a reduction in non-tariff barriers. How do you enforce it?
“Nobody is here to enforce. The only person who really mentions it is the Asean Secretary-General, but he does not have the legal powers to do that,” Nazir said.
SABC is conducted under the auspices of the Selangor International Business Summit (SIBS) at the Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre from yesterday to Saturday (October 11).
