Iron Bowl No More!

There was a time when government jobs were most sought after as it assured the incumbent security of tenure. As long as there is  no disciplinary case against him, and he has passed all his in-service examinations; the incumbent will wait for his for promotion. There was no discrimation by race or creed. Office politics was almost non-existent.

Then came the office political element into the service. Meritocracy was abused to promote those of the Chief Secretary's men. Inefficiency crept in.

Yesterday,the current Chief Secretary said that public sector jobs were no longer considered “safe” as the Government and society now expect more from them.


 The bulging civil service must be trimmed down and the Public Services Department is forced to re-look at how they can do this as the way civil service business is run must also change with time and the advent of technology.

He spoke about 'merit' in the civil service  and that it had become very important in a globalised and competitive world. I do hope his definition of 'merit'  has the same meaning as used universally to mean a 'level -laying field'. 

“When I first joined 36 years ago, public service was not the best-paying job, but it was almost a ‘guaranteed’ job as long as you didn’t commit a big boo-boo until retirement,” he told reporters yesterday after meeting with delegates from the Muslim Council of Britain.[Let us not forget, my good man, that boo-boo are oftentimes created to put good men down!]

However, there was now higher expectation of the public sector and civil servants had no choice but to improve or be replaced, he said.[ This hardly happened. They are transferred out to the JPA pool.]

“If you don’t perform, we will have to find better ways to make you perform. If we don’t do things as expected, other people will do those things,” he said.[ This is perhaps, laughable! Only Japan does this.]

“Where public sector jobs was once seen as ‘safe’, it is not the case anymore in Malaysia,” he added.

He said the highest ranking officers in the civil service needed to make their contact details public so they were accessible by e-mail and phone. [ Extending contracts of some self-serving officers is killing morale and denying others of promotion!]

“Complainants must receive a response within 48 hours. We engage all media – print and online alike.
“We need to clarify queries raised both through the media and complaints bureaus. In short, nothing is sacrosanct to probe and questioning,” he said. [You may be doing it. The Public Complaints Bureau may be practising it. Are others that hardly have anything to do with the public doing this,my good man?]

Sidek said the public sector needed to drive the private sector by setting higher standards of service delivery.

He warned against complacency although Malaysia now ranked 23 out of 185 countries in the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business ranking, 24th in the World Economic Forum’s competitiveness ranking and 10th in the Swiss-based IMD competitive ranking.

“Although we are ahead of countries like China, Italy, New Zealand in our competitiveness, it is still not good enough,” he said. You said it truly here, my good man.

As the Bard says, " To thine own self,be true!"