Save me the history of your past contributions…and thanks for the brain drain….

I compliment you on the things you have done to make things better. But we are talking about the Malaysian civil service today in the 21st century. What you see “a light in this government’s room”, I see darkness and ineptitude and lurking behind that corruption.

I am of the view– and obviously you disagree– that civil service performance is what I would at best describe as “sub-optimal”. Top civil servants allowed politicians to interfere in the day to day administration of the country.

Today, the civil service is being blamed for poor public service delivery by none other than the Prime Minister himself. It has become the centre of “ampu bodek” culture. Even the present Chief Secretary to Government did not have the courage to defend it against public criticism and political pressure. In stead, he exposed the service he heads to more damnation from the public.

Your fellow teman orang Perak, Tan Sri Ahmad Sarji who was Chief Secretary during the Mahathir Administration, wrote a book “Civil Service Reforms:Towards Malaysia’s Vision 2020″(Kuala Lumpur:Pelanduk Publications, 1996). It is a very elegantly written book with a lots of management jargon and buzzwords.

In his Forward to this book, former Kuala Lumpur Mayor Dr. Mazlan bin Ahmad, then Director-General, Public Services Department, said that Tan Sri Sarji strived “to transform the Civil Service into a customer-focused, mission-driven, performance-based and proactive force that remains responsible and accountable…[W]ith his extraordinary capability to persuade and inspire… public sector organizations have become more adaptable, responsive and flexible to changes”. Bravo!!

Tan Sri Ahmad Sarji said that under his leadership, “[T]he Civil Service in Malaysia is undergoing a paradign shift” (ala Thomas Kuhn). He defined paradigm as “a set of rules that defines boundaries and tells us how to function within those boundaries. Once a paradigm takes hold, it strongly influences our perceptions of things and we will resist new ways of seeing the world and new approaches to solving problems. Only a paradigm shift will force us to reframe our thinking”.

He went on to say “[T]he paradigm shift in the civil service is from a rule-bound bureaucratic tradition to a more proactive, flexible and adaptable mode of operations…We have moved from our conventional and one-dimensional roles as rule-setters and regulators to that of facilitator and pacesetter in national development. We have formed strategic alliances with the private sector in pursuit of accelerated growth”. (Page 21)

That was in the 1990s when the public sector and the private sector came together with our trade unions and became cronies of a powerful state under the label “Malaysia Inc”. Come 1997-1998, that model was discredited.

As you apparently are more in touch with what is happening in our country, could you please explain to me why the civil service is not what Tan Sri Ahmad Sarji had envisoned. What happened since he left the Civil Service to become PNB Chairman and Chairman, Sime Darby Group. Did his paradign shift take root ? Did his successors who he trained let him down? Or was it just a case of “talk is cheap.”

Thanks.

for once I’m not impress by your comment and maybe due to long ‘lepaking’ outside the system with extra influences from the ‘great master’ i.e the surgeon of the century.

dont blame the kids who joint civil servant and dont kill their hope!! why should you? You choose not to fight the battle from inside but what have you done from the distance?

u said,

‘So Azian, you are defending an indefensible and corrupt system. If you are an insider, I ask you a simple question and that is, what have you done? Talk is truly cheap.’

let me tell you what we’ve done so far as the researcher for malaysian government without no extra ringgit in the pocket apart from the salary,

1. we have developed the implant procedure using rapid prototyping that reduce the surgeon time in operation theatre from 14 hours to 4.

2. We have developed a system used in fighting fire in high rise building, there were no americans involved, few brown asses, that’s all.

3. We build 25 different machine in 25 different factories within 10 years reducing the number of Bangladeshi worker.

no point listing down all the things but what is important is that we have only 24 staffs in this department and 80% of them are Malays.

We help the Makcik and Pakcik to increase their production of kerepeks and others. At least there is a light in this government’s room.

How wrong you can be about me!! I take exception to your remarks
“[W]hat have you done in the past after milking the system ha???”.

I have never milked the system for my personal benefit. Everything I got was through sheer hard work, and strong will power motivated by a set of convictions which I acquired from my various mentors. I stood up for whatever I thought was the right thing to do and did it in the right way. I worked with the system, always fighting against it. I was never afraid to do it, even if it was at the expense of my career.

Don’t you ever put me in the same ranks of those corrupt Malays who exploited the system, even at the expense of the Malays in the desas. I came from a modest background, and do not have to apologise for it.

I rather you challenge my ideas and views than make accusations which are baseless or without foundation. If you say that both Bakri and I dare not champion meritocracy, you obviously either have not read or not understood whatever we wrote all these years.

Thanks.

To Khairul, I would advise you to begin learning everything about China and India to prepare to ride the next global rennaissance. Hope you are not too dim to realise your brudders Ah Kow and Muthu at home are your resources la!

“The fact is that in general and it is already proven that people are willing to work hard if there are rewards and incentives waiting for them.”

- Is the recent 8 billion ringgit Payrise to Civil Servants not incentive enough for them to work hard? Salary increment should not have been made a right but a priviledge, only to those who so deserve it.

What happened to that BN crap - “Cemerlang, Gemilang Terbilang” for Excellence, Glory and Distinction?

You are insulting the memory of Napoleon Bonaparte by calling our civil servants “Napoleans”.

Azian,

You must have the courage to respond to all the comments made so far on the state of our civil service. We do not have to be insiders to know where the cheap talkers are.

The Harvard Group did a study on the civil service not long ago. The Prime Minister, the Chief Secretary to the Government and the Head of the Public Services Department have copies of this report.

Of course, I do not expect the Prime Minister who cannot read more than a 2-page memorandum to study the report. he is too busy with his corridors and other mega projects. But there is no action from the other two. Maybe these two civil service professionals are too busy playing along with their political bosses to worry about the deteriorating state of affairs in their service.

Surely, after having spent some public funds on this study, the public is entitled to know what can be done to make the civil efficient, honest and accountable and more responsive to the needs of the public.

Talk about transparency and accountability for what? It is time for the public to demand more out of civil servants. Enough of excuses and crap. The time has also come for our political leaders fix the problem.

They can do it, but they won’t because they benefit from the status quo. Why remove the opportunities to make “easy money” .

YES, that’s the norm and that’s Malaysia BOleh for you. Those civil servants treat their offices like a venue for family gathering, a place to gossip than to be working, and get paid! They don’t have much innitiative to be proactive in their work and it seems to me, for them to work a little extra is a big “rugi” - a great loss!

At least these days we see a ‘working’ Immigration Dept nowadays, thanks to the media for its watchful eyes over them.

I had my experience with ROS - Registrar of Society. It took me 2+ months just waiting for their acknowledgment to my NGO’s Constitutional Amendment notification.

When I checked with them, I was informed that their letter was returned by Pejabat Pos for “non-delivery” so they just filed it lah. Apparently the premises was under renovation. Yes, that was true it’s not their fault but then this NGO has a PO Box number, why can’t the letter be redirected to that address, I asked? The answer I received was, “we don’t deal with post office address” !!!!!

This is Malaysian Civil Service! I think we should call them not “Civil Servants” but “Civil Napoleans”.