Thursday 28 Mar 2024
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MALAYSIA’S civil service of approximately 1.4 million staff translates to 4.7% of the population. For the longest time, it was seen as bloated and inefficient — a burden on state finances, especially when the government is aiming to achieve a balanced budget by 2020.

Now, after years of growing the public sector, the federal government is finally biting the bullet. Under the 11th Malaysia Plan, the government plans to transform the civil service by focusing on several areas with the end target of improving service delivery to the people.

The focus areas include enhancing service delivery, rationalising public sector institutions for greater productivity and performance, strengthening talent management, enhancing project management for better and faster outcomes, and capitalising on local authorities at the local level.

Of these, probably the boldest step ever to be taken by the government through the Malaysia Plans is rationalising the public sector. The government will for the first time undertake “right-sizing” of the public sector and reduce overlapping functions of the institutions.

The government will also be formulating an exit strategy to terminate underperforming staff. Public ser-vants who do not meet the stipulated performance criteria will undergo improvement programmes and be given a specific time period to improve their performance.

If they fail to improve their performance, their services will be terminated. This is a departure from the government’s previous practice in which public servants would usually only be dismissed if they were found guilty of breaking the country’s laws.

Nevertheless, proposing to transform the public service is only the first step the government has taken. The bigger challenge ahead is opposition from the Congress of Unions of Employees in the Public and Civil Service (Cuepacs).

“The government has already lost a lot of goodwill on many issues. They should not make the people angrier by trying to right-size the public service,” says Cuepacs president Datuk Azih Muda when asked about the government’s plan to transform the civil service.

The government’s resolve to rationalise the public sector will be tested for certain and whether it will waver from its intention will only become clearer in the next five years.

 

This article first appeared in The Edge Malaysia Weekly, on May 25 - 31, 2015.

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