Which soldier works without a salary?

 

Photo credit: The Star 

Which soldier works without a salary?

By Stephen Ng

I refer to the letter, “Dawn of Better Civil Service” by chairman of Asli Centre for Public Policy Studies, Tan Sri Ramon Navaratnam.

Written by a former civil servant himself, this letter reveals much about the state of the civil service today.

We, the members of the public, would like to convey a strong message to the Chief Secretary, Datuk Seri Dr Ismail Bakar that he has an important role to play to reform the civil service.

May 9 marks the change of government. With it, we want to see important reforms in the civil service.

With over 1.6 million civil servants in this country, we are probably one of the highest in terms of ratio of civil servants to the population.

One civil servant serves only 19 persons, compared to Singapore with one civil servant to 71.4 people and United Kingdom 1:118 (see table below from Nazir Razak).

This shows how inefficient our civil service is. Since 2003, the salaries paid to the civil servants have risen more than three-fold from RM22 billion to RM74 billion due to the excesses of the previous regime.

With the much needed reforms, Dr Ismail has to be firm as the chief secretary. There cannot be any compromises with any civil servant that tries to sabotage the reform process.

An urgent issue that he should immediately investigate is the non-payment of salaries to staff who came in with their ministers after the cabinet was set up.

Some of the ministers’ aides are also paid on contract basis based on the number of days they work in a month.  

Which government hires its staff and not paying their salaries for nearly half a year? What on earth is happening to the people who are supposed to be paying the salaries?

Obviously, there are people within the civil service who are trying to sabotage the new Government. This cannot be tolerated. The people responsible for the non-payment of salaries should be hauled up to face the music.

I am told that one of the ministers even had to fork out money from his own salary to help his staff. How long can he do that?

Not mincing my words, we demand an explanation from the Chief Secretary and how is it that this can be overlooked.

STEPHEN NG is an ordinary citizen with an avid interest in following political developments in the country since 2008. After May 9, 2018, he is now involved in contributing ideas towards rebuilding of the nation.