As a conveyancing lawyer, I deal a lot with the Bahagian Pinjaman Perumahan (BPP) of the Ministry of Finance with regards to loan files of government servants.

I do acknowledge that BPP is not a commercial bank, and thus will not have the level of efficiency of such banks who are competing for business.

Nevertheless, I find it ridiculous that if there are problems with the loan documentation or lawyers' advice letters, BPP issues letters in reply only by ordinary post. Usually the date of posting is a few days after the date stated on the letter. Thus, in order to avoid delays, the law firm has to call up BPP frequently and regularly to find out the status of each file concerned.

Although BPP now has a customer service hotline which has friendly people manning it, the problem is in communicating with the person in charge of the file after the call is transferred to that person. The line is either busy, or the person answering the call is totally lacking in manners!

Oh well, one can t expect changes overnight, can one? After all, our previous prime minister was in power for over two decades, and he tolerated (and very probably indirectly bred) such lackadaisical attitudes.