Our Crumbling Civil Service
Our Crumbling Civil Service
M. Bakri Musa and Din Merican
MalaysiaToday May 30, 2007
Prime Minister Abdullah’s announcement of a pay raise for civil servants, in the midst of the furor over water leaks and collapsed ceilings at spanking new government buildings, brings to the fore once again the angst on the state of the Malaysian civil service.
The civil service specifically and our public institutions generally are fast losing their effectiveness through the twin blights of corruption and incompetence. This is the critical challenge facing the nation. Unfortunately, the Prime Minister refuses to acknowledge or is unable to comprehend this reality. He is content with mouthing endless exhortations: “Be more efficient!â€Â “Do not be corrupt!†“Be global in outlook!â€
This is vintage Abdullah, as his contemporaries in the civil service would attest, accustomed to his countless hours in such sembang (empty talks) back at the old Federal House building in the 1960s.
Abdullah’s leadership, like our institutions, is blighted by incompetence and corruption. Only a few months ago Abdullah was bemoaning the Little Napoleons in the civil service. Then the service was a convenient scapegoat for the inadequacies of his policies. Today he claims these civil servants deserve a pay hike. Talk about mixed signals!
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Bloat Is Not The Only Problem
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           By whatever measure (relative to the economy, population, state of development, or compared to similar nations), our civil service is definitely bloated. That presents its own problems, quite apart from the substantial burden it imposes on the country. The only thing worse than a bloated civil service is one that is also corrupt and incompetent. And that unfortunately is what Malaysia has.
The optimal size of government varies with different countries, dependent upon among others, the culture and state of development. Thus simplistically comparing the civil servant-to-population ratios or size of government relative to the economy would be meaningless. Even more problematic is that the very definition of public service varies. Physicians do the same work everywhere; in America they are mostly in the private sector, in Malaysia, civil service.
When there is no government (or an ineffective one), there would be chaos and no meaningful development, economic and others. That is the curse of many African countries. Likewise when the government is huge and all-powerful, it smothers the citizens, reducing them to wards of the state. The result would be also economic stagnation, as exemplified by the old Soviet system. The American Presidential candidate of the 1960s, Barry Goldwater, rightly observed that a government that is big enough to give you all you want is big enough to take it all away.
This negative consequence of too little or too much government is encapsulated in the wisdom of the Armey curve, first articulated by the American economist turned politician, Richard Armey.
It is not the size of the government however, that is important, rather what it does with that size and power. Governments in Canada and Scandinavia consume a much larger share of the economy, yet their citizens are very happy. Those governments use their power and resources to provide preschool for every child, protect the environment, and guarantee universal healthcare for their citizens. The Malaysian government uses its considerable power and size to monitoring what citizens are reading, intimidating its critics, and competing against citizens in the marketplace.
Visit a Canadian National Park and compare it to our Taman Negara; that would be a concrete and readily comprehensible example of an effective government. If our civil servants were consumed less with moral cleansing by snooping around catching people in khalwat and instead pick up the rubbish in our parks and rivers, then there would be fewer complaints and more sympathy for the salary hikes.
If ministers responsible for education were to focus only on improving our schools and universities instead of busy trying to appear as champions of our race, language, and other extraneous issues, then we would need only one instead of three ministers. We could then double his or her salary, and it would still be cheaper on the nation. It would also be more efficient.
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Insidious Problem
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To be fair, the deterioration of the civil service predated Abdullah. The shift away from an independent, apolitical and impartial institution began under Mahathir. He appointed the less-than-capable Ahmad Sarji as Chief Secretary to do his (Mahathir’s) bidding. That however is now history. The consequence is that today the civil service is reduced to nothing more than an instrument of UMNO.
           Abdullah perpetuated and aggravated the trend by bringing in his own cabal of wet-behind-the-ears outside advisers, most notably his son-in-law and Kallimullah Hassan. Abdullah squandered his massive electoral mandate in not improving the civil service.
           With time and lack of remedial actions, the problems in the civil service compounded and gained momentum. Now the rot is obvious and has reached the very core; solving it would be much more complicated.
           Consider corruption. We do not need Transparency International to tell us that the problem is entrenched. The leaking roof is only the most visible manifestation of corruption’s toll. An encounter with the traffic police or customs officer will bring that reality to a very personal level.
It reflects Abdullah’s naivety that he believes raising salaries would solve the problem of corruption. On the contrary, that would only make it worse. Whereas before a RM 50 note would satisfy the traffic cop, today he or she would sniff at it, demanding a bigger loot to match his or her now higher expectations.
There can only be two reasons for increasing salaries: to reward increased productivity and to attract talent. The civil service fails on both counts. There is no shortage of applicants for government jobs. As for productivity, visit any government department.
One would think that with the glut of applicants, the government would get the best talent. Far from it! The qualification for entry into the administrative service remains the same, any university degree. One would have thought that the government would tighten the standards and insist that candidates demonstrate competency in English and mathematics. Today our diplomats can hardly express themselves or understand the quantitative aspects of high finance, yet we trust them to negotiate complicated trade treaties and international agreements!
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Impact on the Malay Labor Market
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Either by design or through default, the civil service is primarily a Malay institution. As the largest employer of Malays, it has a disproportionate and unhealthy impact on the dynamics of the Malay labor market. Young Malays respond not to market forces but to the demands of the civil service. The world may demand skills in science, technology, and English, but as long as the civil service does not emphasize or need those skills, young Malays would have little incentive to acquire them.
As Malays have a fascination for the civil service, it could potentially play a pivotal role in influencing the development of Malay talent. If the government were to mandate that all civil servants be fluent in English (as well as Malay, of course), science literate, and have mathematical skills, it would automatically encourage young Malays to pursue those subjects.
We recommend going further and require that all applicants for government jobs have at least three years of private sector experience. That would ensure the government gets the best applicants. Those Malays who aspire for the civil service would have to first prepare themselves for the private sector, meaning they would have to learn English and be mathematically competent.
Imagine the improved quality of our civil servants if they have had some private sector experience and marketplace exposure. For one, they would be more responsive to the needs of their customers, the public. For another, they would not be insulated from everyday realities.
The public disgust against the recent salary hikes for civil servants reflects a general dissatisfaction on the quality of our government. The public is not getting the quality of services for all the money expended. Improve the quality, and the public would not begrudge the raises.
June 3rd, 2007 at 2:37 pm
Dr Bakri
3 yars in the private sector won’t make the Malay graduate a better person, what if his/her experience in the private sector was with a rent seeking Malay enterprise. Both establishment operate within the same mentality without any responsibility for the outcome or performance.
The PTD Perkhidmatan Tadbir dan Diplomatik needs to have a benchmark for hiring officers. No longer a general degree in Malay Studies or Islamic Studies would suffice. New recruits would be required to have the appropriate degree to fit the position or Ministry where they will be posted. Imagine having a Malay Studies graduate aspiring to be the Trade Commissioner or Head of Mission for Malaysia at WTO. Certainly he would be ill prepared. How about the Secretary General of the various Ministries? Did the Secretary General of Mindef attended courses at a military officers training school? Does the Sec Gen Ministry of Agriculture understand Agriculture? How about the Sec Gen Ministry of Human Resources? Does he have any HR experience? I can go on and on but the civil service is an old boys association. They promote from amogst themselves and often times are promoted into position they have no knowledge about and are doomed to fail. They also have maybe 1 or 2 years before retirement. What can they contribute in 1 oe 2 years when they are busy lobbying for Directorship potions in the private sector upon retirement.
June 3rd, 2007 at 6:52 pm
I was a civil servant for 15 years and also have more than ten years of merchant banking experience. I observed the skill required in the public and private sector do not differ much. The only difference is that the latter require you to generate business and hence improve its profitability.
But what make the performance of public sector employees pathetic? I think there is no simple answer to it. The fact that it has grown too big and with its administration highly centralised, has created its own problem. Changes to work culture and business process cannot be initiated from within. It has to be imposed from outside. It would also be easier to implement change in the business process if each Ministry and Department operate autonomously. Otherwise how do you manage an organisation for which you have very little control over your employee and other resources.
The problem with public sector management is wholesale not just the PTD. Professional services like medicine, engineering and education are also not spared of the disease. It is not about race, your field of study, and poor English. It is about poor management and the structural problem associated with it.
The public sector need a business process reengineering! They certainly could emulate the efficient private sector model, may be a multinational company having business units world wide.
June 4th, 2007 at 4:34 am
Dr Bakri Musa & Sdr Din Merican,
Salaam
Strange but somehow your article reminds me of the Ottoman Empire at the turn of the 20th century. I will have to check on that.
Still, would the concept of Bangsa Malaysia take us out of the muck that we ARE in?
Ahh, Korupsi…where do we begin? I am tempted to like the way China deals with her corrupted officials - at least those bureaucrats and party officials from the lower of the top echelon. Still, I need to check on that.
June 5th, 2007 at 10:57 am
We really can’t question the govt on this as it will be made a racial or religious issue. That is the only way they can deal with any weakness currently.
The salary increase is nothing but a vote buying process off course Islam Hadhari leaders do not lie. Do they deserve this increase? Just look at all the mishaps and flip flops in the country. In the so call modern world, with modern technology, buildings are falling apart. Why didn’t buildings in the 70s and 80s fall apart? The quest to enrich oneself and you scratch my back and I scratch yours between civil servants and their politician masters is so deep that both do their best to cover each others backsides.
The civil servant of 50-70s, I think had a desire to do what is best for the country and did they best. Were they better educated than the current ones? The current ones are a tidak apa attitude and they use religion and race to justify or divert attention.
June 5th, 2007 at 9:04 pm
Dear Rocky and Shrek,
There is too much spoonfeeding, favoritism, and too much of Malay culture in the civil service.
It does not matter whether the civil servant works or not. He/she gets annual increments, bonuses and political giveaways from time to time. What I am saying is that the incentive system is a cock-up.
It is going to take political will, guts and enormous effort to change things. Not now when Pak Kaduk is still in charge.
June 6th, 2007 at 10:47 pm
Bro Din
The top civil servants is forever looking for easy money for their retirement. Many of them when given to head an agency or government owned entity will find ways and means to make that agency or entity to become a berhad company. If that is not possible they will scheme to siphon off funds. There are many examples such as UDA, PERNAS, PERNAS Edar, USMETA, Express Nasional, BUMIREL, LORI Malaysia, PINB, Padi Beras Negara, LPP, FELDA, FELCRA, MUDA, KEMUBU, Tabung Haji LTAT, and many others. Of late have you noticed the rot going into Khazanah and even PNB. Some are caught while others are protected.
As you say the civil servant whether working or not will get automatic increment each year and then promoted when a vacancy occurs without considering the merits. All the Cemerlang scheme are not quantitative but rather appeals to the emotional factor of the boss. Nobody likes to be the bad guys. I’ve even seen underachiever and underperformer and those with questionable integrity being given the Hadiah Cemerlang.
Even as recently when a government officer was asked why change his travel plans and incurring large penalty, the reply was why not even the Minister can charter a private jet to go to Boston. So they follow the “Pimpinan melalui Teladan” Monkey see monkey do.
June 7th, 2007 at 2:38 am
Dear Shrek,
It looks as if the existing system is so badly damaged that the public service is heading down the road to nowhere. Many still benefit from the status quo, and so why fix it with new rules of the game.
In the 1980s, Ahmad Sarji, then Chief Secretary, introduced Total Quality Management (TQM). Ministries and other agencies had mission statements or client charters. When you visited them, you would find these “artifacts” prominently displayed in the reception areas. No one really cared to live by those pledges.
Millions of dollars were spent annually for staff training, seminars, workshops and conferences, especially around May-August, ahead of the next budget. A performance evaluation was introduced. Yet both the quality and productivity of public service delivery did not improve, despite best intentions.
Now in the Badawi era, we have KPIs (Key Peformance Indicators) and better salaries and benefits. I am not sure that the PM will not succeed in changing things around.
My sources told me that recently top civil servants spent a few days in Langkawi with the Deputy Prime Minister, Dato Seri Najib Tun Razak at taxpayers expense and participated in a seminar led by the Korean co-author from INSEAD of the popular book, “Blue Ocean” (not the real full title).
Now everyone in the top echelons of the civil service is talking about crafting blue ocean strategy. Why? Because it is Dato Seri Najib’s favorite management book, not because they see any value in this new approach and framework to strategy making and execution. Bodek lagi!!
In fact to most of them the word “strategy” still sounds Greek. The Blue Ocean strategic approach will suffer the same fate as TQM of the 1980s.
It is all sandiwara and this has been going on for years. Nothing will change, except superficially.
Thanks.
June 8th, 2007 at 1:19 am
Dr Bakri,
Salaam
Which treament regime would you choose to treat a patient with
cancer of the prostate?
cancer of the liver, stomach?
cancer of the blood?
cancer of the skin?
cancer of the brain??
cancer of the Heart - (soul, bro)?
June 10th, 2007 at 8:53 am
With each passing regime, the civil service becomes more regressive. The civil service actually is a lucky lot, if I may put it that way. Representing a huge, if not the largest, vote bank, it will be in the interest of the leaders to “buy” votes easily with the perks dished out to them periodically.
What bemuses me is, it appears that this lethargy has rubbed-off its effects in the private sector. While it so appears that the private sector is far ahead in terms of performance and productivity, it is certainly not at a level good enough to match the growing standards to ward off the stiff competition even from our Asean neighbours.
A culture of pervasiveness seems to have permeated generally among Malaysians. Amid concerns that we are fighting a losing battle to retain our position (economically), the leaders and their cohorts are oblivious to the reality that surrounds us. As one of them recently told me, enjoy life while you can. When I pointed the effects of our folly on our future generations, he simply retorted - why worry about the future generations? As we have taken care of us now, let them take care of themselves. After all, we woundn’t be around anyway. Would they be thinking along the same lines when their own kin/children are concerned? Well, I am holding my breath.
June 11th, 2007 at 8:55 am
Din Merican brought a very pertinent point regarding the passion of leaders to innovate or who assume they could innovate. The introduction of Total Quality Management (TQM) in the early 1990s by Ahmad Sarji, I persume, was one example of such folly. Nowhere was TQM pursued vigorously other than the Armed Forces, primarily because Najib was the Defence Minister then (and still is).
Commanders were told to adhere to the requirements of the Ministry without fail. Threats were used to ensure compliance. This was pretty easy in a discipline organisation like the armed Forces. So you see TQM corners in all units on the ground. The word TQM was the by-word then although many did not know the difference between Total and Quality. So long as TQM was mentioned during briefs that was enough to please a visiting general who, in all possibility, was clueless about TQM.
I had on several occasions argued the relevance of TQM in the army and had written a thesis to prove the inadequacy of such a system but was told, in no uncertain terms, that my theory was wrong and what was dished out by the Ministry was right.
Client charter was taken to a new height by some moronic generals who felt they were on the right path of enlightment. The army chief then was so imbued with TQM that he ordered units to erect billboards in front of guard houses so soldiers could read and remember them by heart. Soon billboards began to sprout all over the camps. One such camp in Ipoh had no less than four boards at its entrance. For a moment we became a solgan-shouting army with a multitude of objectives to remember. It was hilarious but to some idiots it was serious business.
I once told my commanding general that training was more important than shouting slogans and erecting billboards. Obviously, he was not amused. I was reprimanded for belittling his instructions. That was the army then.
Blue Ocean Strategy, as Din Mericam describes is the in thing today. I read this on an ad recently, “Are you operating in the RED OCEAN business. STOP! Achieve success to capture uncontested Blue Ocean market space!”
This hocus pocus is related to business strategy. I wonder what has Blue Ocean strategy to do with a bloated civil service that has been swimming in a dark ocean since Independence? No amount of red or blue ocean is going to change the civil servants’ mindset. I just hope the armed forces is not cajoled to adopt such strategy as well. Well, I am not surprised if it does.
June 11th, 2007 at 1:10 pm
Bro Din,
TQM, Six Sigma, Kempen Senyum, ISO 9000 and many more programs instituted by the government are without nought. It’s the people that make or break the system. So far all these have become buzz words used by senior government officials without really understanding the input and output expectations. The government can continue to have more of these programs or strategies as they are called but let’s take a look at the outcome. Nothing has changed.
Take a look at Najibs statement about establishing Malaysian Kitchen overseas. He has made these statements twice but so far applicants have been kept in the dark on how the system will work. There is no funding made available and applicants are asked to get financing from EXIM bank. Even without the Malaysian Kitchen concpets Malaysians have opened up restaurants overseas. Malaysian entreprenuers have acted on their own without the government intervention. Now along comes the government trying to set up Malaysian Kitchen overseas to reflect the Malaysian image and make Malaysian food to appeal to the host countries. Instead of competing the government should be complementing. Tourism Malaysia and the Ministry for Entreprenuer Development should help promote existing restaurants and offering them incentives for projecting the Malaysian images. These incentives can come in many forms. Buying ads and promoting the restaurants in guide books and doing coop ads in return for displaying tourism brochures. Ministry for entreprenuer development should use existing restaurants as incubator for future restaurant developments. But I guess the senior Ministry officials are busy trying to see which officer is going to be promoted next and busy calculating their elaun saraan or how uch they will be making with the salary boost coming in July.
January 3rd, 2008 at 3:03 am
dear sirs,
i am newly joint PTD somewhere in the enclave of putrajaya. previously worked in the operations of a well established foreign bank here in Malaysia. it was unfortunate that i dont have the time to ponder each and every article u gentlemen have. from these few articles, i respect both dr bakri and en. din as ur writings have indeed opened my perspectives on a lot of matters.
let me comment about the state of malaysian civil service. compared to my previous working experience, things are so much slower. (i’ve only been in the service for a year now) so so so much slower. but somehow i find that i can shine here. here is my small pool and i intend to become that big fish. a guru once told me; be that big fish in that small pool. why do i say that? because i am able to make change. i have changed how my small run it’s operation. my presence here is felt and ultimately, i have learned to make decisions. this was not the case in “swasta”. my ex colleagues think that an assisstant director in the gov is a big thing. it’s not, but the responsabilities actually are.
the thing is, to a certain extent, dr bakri’s idea about being more selective is true. i must admit, half of the officers, predominantly malay, cant construct a sentence in english without going “eh apa tuh”. but i wouldnt blame them, i blame the education system. but then again, so what if we cant speak english properly? are we malays so low in jati diri that we need to make people listen to our heavily accented english to have a decent discourse? we need new ideas and innovations.
i really cant give much ideas on how to change the service yet. just to point out that my dept have started on balance scorecard (started as in sending people to attend courses). i was so suprised to learn that no other gov agencies have actually used it except for mampu. when i mentioned scorecard, other officers never even heard of it. no wonder why things are so lembab here, the service is using ideas recycled from dulu - dulu and from old brood who inherits the same ideas. i see the training modules in INTAN and only those JUSA can be sent to harvard business school. why invest in old brooms? send the young ones (like yours truly).
what do u get from PTD’s nowadays? some of them are simply so fresh out of school, no wonder they get bullied by the kerani.