One of the key objectives of privatisation under the then prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad was to increase the efficiency of the delivery system and to reduce the civil service staff members to just above 500,000.
It is time the government addresses the issue of the overbloated civil service.
If you take pensions into account, emoluments and pensions as a percentage of the government’s operating expenditure, the increase is from 29.8% in 2006 to 41.6% in 2010. Despite the fact that the annual budget is always increasing, the emoluments and pensions percentage proportion of the Budget is also ballooning!
Selena Tay, Free Malaysia Today
The 2012 Budget has failed to address the serious issues of soaring prices, rising inflation, minimum wage, corruption, cronyism, wastages and leakages in government departments but make no bones about it.
Malaysia’s civil service has got to go on record as being the most overbloated in the world. As at 2010, it numbers about 1.2 million employees on the government payroll out of a population of 28 million. What gives?
The civil service has been expanding rapidly since the 1990s and its growth has been accelerated especially fast since 2007. In 1990, the government had 773,997 employees, by the year 2000 there were 894,788 staff members and by 2010 about 1.2 million.
One of the key objectives of privatisation under the then prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad was to increase the efficiency of the delivery system and to reduce the civil service staff members to just above 500,000. Therefore, it could be said that the privatisation exercises were a complete and dismal failure in creating a lean and efficient civil service as the number now is more than twice its targetted size of 500,000.
The overbloated civil service has for the most part to do with the government’s policy of making our civil service the job saviour for the unemployable graduates, at least 70% of whom were Bumiputeras.
This will result in a poor quality workforce but worse than that it also depletes the government’s treasury. The Budget will be negatively impacted for the present and future years if the government does not restructure the civil service. Their pay rise itself will be a waste of public funds if there is a lack of efficiency and productivity.
‘Iron rice bowl’
In fact the civil service is none other than an “iron rice bowl” for no one can recall the government sacking any of its under-performing staff. Civil service staff, for example teachers who are racists are merely transferred to another school where they can still remain safely and securely employed even if they have done a disservice to the nation by inculcating young minds with racists tendencies.
This simply means that their paychecks are safely guaranteed by the government for the rest of their lives. This spurs them on to vote for Barisan Nasional come what may. Thus, their loyalty is secured as their morality and conscience go down the drain.
In 2005, the government’s emoluments expenses to maintain the civil service is RM25.6 billion and in 2008 it was RM41 billion (an increase of 60.2%). The civil service, therefore, is a heavy burden on emoluments as a percentage of Malaysia’s financial budget.
From taking up 23.3% of the nation’s operating budget in 2006, it has been nothing but a yearly increase as it grew to 25.5% in 2007, 28.1% in 2008, 24.6% in 2009 and 33.1% in 2010 in spite of the yearly massive increase in operating expenditure from 101.2 billion in 2006 to RM154.2 billion three years later in 2009.
If you take pensions into account, emoluments and pensions as a percentage of the government’s operating expenditure, the increase is from 29.8% in 2006 to 41.6% in 2010. Despite the fact that the annual budget is always increasing, the emoluments and pensions percentage proportion of the Budget is also ballooning!
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation & Development (OECD) shows Malaysia having the highest ratio of civil servants to the population in the Asia-Pacific region at 4.68% with Indonesia having 1.79%, Philippines 1.81%, South Korea 1.85% and Thailand 2.06%. Therefore the overbloated civil service is a major contributory factor to the financial burden of the government.
In 2007, the government created 2,000 jobs in the Ministry of Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs to give jobs to unemployed graduates as “price monitors”. Their job was to jot down the prices of goods at wet markets, supermarkets and hypermarts. What is the purpose of this job is anyone’s guess.
Comments (31)...
written by OXYGENE, October 14, 2011 18:24:10
Not all Malay govt servants are inept, lazy, unproductive and so on. There are many qualified malays who wants to contribute in private sectors. We all knows that most companies in private sectors are owned by Malaysian Chinese and from my own experience they tend to take their own race compared to other races in Malaysia.
I also feel that they only hire Malays just to please the government in order for their business to be smooth sailing. Most of the jobs would be despatch, low grade clerks, or HR related jobs. They too should be accountable for nor opening up for other races.
Look at the job advertisement. They will use the tagline such as "Mandarin speaking " is a must. How on earth are we going to be employed by them despite that some of us are more competitive than the mandarin speaking ones!. In reality it's not always the people, It's the government that should do something about this. ..
written by bumiputar, October 13, 2011 18:44:40 written by ahmad daniele, October 13, 2011 12:57:06 ............... Sdr Rahman,
lu kerja kerajaan ah?
lu tau ka? gua mau masuk kerja sana, itu malaikui cakap gua bukan bubi (i mean bumi), tak bolih masuk o...
lu tau ka? olong kerajaan ada 70 million rakyat, dia punya kakibatangan pun tak se-manyak macam malai tau, kenapa ah?
lu tau, itu emakkonket polisi bubi/bukan bubi butol-butol sial la....itu memang akar semua masaalah skrg tau... ...
written by Frog, October 13, 2011 17:51:32
export them to Indonesia as maids and laborer, let them have some sunshine and absorbs vitamins D which they lack of for staying in the office only playing games and Facebook, previously skype and limewire for porns.......
written by DPG, October 13, 2011 16:22:51
If you don't give Malay graduates jobs in the civil service, who is going to employ these unemployable graduates? And also, UMNO needs to butter the Malays by giving them jobs in the civil service to buy their votes. And that is why the UMNO government gives these civil service employees generous pension, bonuses, etc. to buy their votes. And never mind if they are employed to do nothing. After all, its not UMNO's money. The Malays have been brainwashed from young that they can only depend on UMNO to survive. Without UMNO, they die out as a race. This is how UMNO has told the Malays how useless they are. ...
written by passion 1, October 13, 2011 16:03:02
The only attraction in the civil service is the PENSION SCHEME, and the second is the 'NO Pressure', work conditions.
One way to discourage the people from joining, and at the same time to encourage the currently employed to accept a voluntary self separation scheme (VSS), is to introduce a scheme, whereby, all those who joined in and from year 2000, will be offered NO Pension, but will be given a gratuity of ONE months salary for each year of service.
Not bad, 11 months salary, and find a new job outside. At least can pay off the car loan. ...
written by ahmaddaniele, October 13, 2011 14:50:21
my answer is very simple
1) salahkah seseorang tu apply untuk jawatan kosong? dan jawatan kosong sapa yang create?(kalau bukan BN)
2) kakitangan kerajaan yang diambil bekerja dengan pertolongan pihak tertentu selalunya akan bawa pelbagai masalah tetapi yang betul betul dapat kerja melalui tapisan yang tulen adalah selalunya mereka akan bekerja dengan cemerlang tetapi tidak diendah.
so kalau kita nak goverment yang ada "productivity" , "performe" then campak keluar sahaja kerajaan yang ada bukan dengan buang kakitangan awam........sebagai contoh selangor adakah khalid pecat semua kakitangan awam yang ada ? nope tapi beza tak selangor dulu dengan sekarang? yea so please think with using brain not kepala lutut. ...
written by AB Oh, October 13, 2011 13:15:39
Is it ever possible for a country to prosper with so many state employees who do not produce ????? ...
written by ahmad daniele, October 13, 2011 12:57:06
tuan tuan sekalian,
pada saya pegawai kerajaan tak bersalah dalam hal ini. kenapa mesti harus dipersalahkan kakitangan kerajaan? daripada jumlah 1.2 juta kaitangan yang ada dalam kerajaan berapa ramai kakitangan yang datang nya dari Jabatan Perdana Menteri? siapa yang wujudkan jawatan ini siapa yang lantik mereka ini?
tolong jangan salahkan kakitangan kerajaan apabila sesuatu belaku kerana yang bersalah sebenarnya adalah rakyat malaysia yang masih mengundi BN. Sebagai contoh apa terjadi dengan ani arope bila dia melawan cakap Keraaajn Mahatihir? itu mujur ani arope kalau kakitangan biasa yang gaji cuma 2- 3 ribu kena buang kerja disebabkan mempertahan hak rakyat adalakah kamu semua akan membantu?
kenapa harus bising bila ramai melayu nak kerja dengan kerajaan sedang ramai kaum cina yang tak berminat langsung nak kerja dengan kerajaan. kenapa tidak diperitkaikan perkara ini. dan untuk memastikan golongan cina ini kerja dengan kerajaan dinaikkan gaji insentif yang lebih menarik. sekarang siapa yang bersalah? melayu atau cina?
untuk pengatahuan tuan tuan kakitangan kerajaan cukup tersiksa apabila segala idea, perancangan dan penambahbaikan yang diberikan tidak dilayan sewajarnya oleh mereka yang bergelar YB menteri atau Timb. Menteri.
saya cabar kaum cina kalau betul jujur atas dasar kesamarataan ........boikot produk yang dikeluarkan oleh taukeh cina yang menyokong kerajaan BN. amacam ada berani ke? satu yang saya pasti chinese will always support chinese. haahahaha ..
written by lynn, October 13, 2011 12:52:11 Dr Gopi Krishnan,
When comments were made against bloated inept civil service, you in the medical profession should not take it personally with your angry outburst because your profession is not in the category targeted. Doctors in the civil service who are dissatisfied should refer their frustrations to the Health Ministry. Long hours, lousy pay, no gratitude, no naik pangkat, we are fully aware of this! Maybe it has to do with colors. ...
written by FC, October 13, 2011 12:30:32
a lot of negative things said about civil servants are outdated belief that is no longer true. coupled with the jealousy and racist thinking of some people making their views totally rubbish. malays are the majority because other races would not want this low paying job or too incompetent in national language making them totally unqualified to hold the job. this can be seen from the number of candidates who went for gov jobs interviews. despite being only 8%, Indians candidates always outnumbered chinese.
lower ranks civil servants to this day still earn salary below poverty line. starting at RM700 to RM800. still we're the sixth best in the world for countries of more than 20 mil population. according to world competitiveness yearly report for 2011 the difference of efficiency between gov and private sector in Malaysia is only 3 points. perception that private sector is miles ahead of gov sector in terms of performance is a self-created fantasy and hogwash.
1.2 mil out of 28 mil population making civil service is only 4.2% of overall population. this in itself not a bad number. Greece for example have 10% of it's population as civil servant, hence their problem. if we minus about 400,000 people because in many countries including Greece, army and police did not count as civil servant then we have an even better number that proves our civil service is not bloated at all. unlike Greece our civil servant did not get salary increase every year but only once every 3 to 5 year. bonus also not every year depends on economy. lastly unlike Greece our civil servant did not dream of retiring at age 53 and goyang kaki but 58, last budget have increase this to 60 years old. the problem as i see it is we're very much underpaid.
sure a lot of conservative malay families are attracted to it because of pension. it is equated to stability in the old age. but how sure are you that you going to live up the old age of 60 and collect your monthly pension? lastly some of us in the gov are ISO certified, our service are of international standard. the problem with many is they have one or two bad experience from 5 to 10 years ago and they just can't let go and furthermore they just love bashing civil servant because in some twisted way it makes them feel good about themselves. ...
written by puchong man, October 13, 2011 12:24:53
A bloated civil service is bad managment . no business man will increase the work force unless there is increased demand for his goods/services.
it's plain to see that the civil service is the "last option " the dust bin just to accommodate as much un employable graduates that private sector does not want.
It's better to relook into the un employability of graduates rather than cover it up by putting them into the civil service. .
written by alancheong, October 13, 2011 11:57:44 the neverending circle of maintaining frankenkind .. lost control and now if you don't maintain it'll come and bite you in the rear, ie you lose power, money, fame, status, riches .. padan muka
perhaps this has been the xenophobic, mass murdring dictator's revenge on you
the world, the nation, the land, the nons, not even God ... none of us owe lazy, greedy malays a living
my respect to my hardworking, honest malay brethren ...
written by alfred ho, October 13, 2011 11:01:49 to say that the civil service is bloated is an understatement. just the other day i was shouted at
by a staff member of the small claims court when i questioned as to why her colleague was not
manning his counter even though it was already 2 15 p.m. the reason why these public servants
are so arrogant is because they jolly well know that they are untouchable and that their positions
are safe and secure. they know that no amount of complaints against them will cost them their
jobs. it is a well known fact that many civil servants treat the public shabbily and make them
wait for long periods of time before service is provided. i just wonder how the pakatan raayat is
going to deal with the bloated civil service if and when it comes into power. alfred ho ...
written by Mohd Ibrahim, October 13, 2011 10:29:12
Why more civil servant recruited evry year, when now in ICT era, where computer have replace typist, file searcher, office boy, PAs, .Simply cant understand this. In the early days an officer must have clerk(TO draft letters), typist(TYPING OF LETTERS), office boy(for dispatch job). Now all the officer type their own letter tru computer and send out tru email.
eg. We have JPJ and SPAD station at Puduraya, together we 7 to 8 officers there doing more or less the same task of enforcing laws on public transport. Is government wisely spend? ...
written by GOPI M. KRSHNAN, October 13, 2011 03:45:51
I DONT AGREE WITH MR BOURNE THERE. HE SAYS THET THE CIVIL SERVICE IS ONLY FLLED WITH INEPT AND LAZY WORKERS. I HOPE HE IS NOT TALKING ABOUT THE DOCTORS. WE ARE WORKING OUR ASSES OFF TO HELP THE COMMUNITY AT ONLY A FRACTION OF THE PAY COMPARED TO OTHER FIRST WORLD COUNTRIES. AND WORSE HOW MANY OF THE RAKYAT U THINK IS THANKFUL TO THE DOCTOR? THEY COME IN DRUNK AT LATE NIGHT AND ASK FOR MC. IF U REFUSE THEN THEY SPEAK ALL KINDS OF BAD WORDS AND STORM OUT STILL SHOUTING. AND HE DARES TO SAY THAT WE ARERUNNING THE PUBLIC COFFERS DRY. HEY SCREW YOU MAN. U WANT TO TASTE THE LIFE OF A GOVERNMENT DOCTOR? U SHOULD.. JUST FOR ONE SINGLE DAY... AND COME AND TELL ME WHAT U FELT. ..
written by seriousmalayman, October 13, 2011 02:14:42
So which model country we should follow now? US? UK? Singapore? hah!!! You guys don't read news enough. These so called model countries have more serious problems than ours. For more than 10 years ppl like you keep preaching that our country is going down soon but it has not happened. Scare yourself la kiasu, I don't buy it. ..
written by Jayden, October 13, 2011 01:38:54
if govt servers = bn voters, then i think the reason is clear ...
written by TeacherAgain, October 12, 2011 23:02:02
Why is it that the teaching profession is being targeted again? why always use teacher as example as if teachers are the worst civil servant of all...Not that long ago, teachers used to be teachers only.. Nowadays, teachers are also, general clerks, contractors, gardeners, chairperson of this and that, coaches, and even baby sitters.. Please. Give us teachers some room to breathe... ...
written by bumiputar, October 12, 2011 22:46:51
just cut the fcuking civil services by at least 50%.
Reduce the ethenic malays to 30%, increse chines & Indian to 30% each, and 10% for Dll. ...
written by temenggong, October 12, 2011 21:11:07
One of the key objectives of privatisation under the then prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad was to increase the efficiency of the delivery system and to reduce the civil service staff members to just above 500,000. This is UmnoMalay talk. "The policy was good but the implementation was bad."
Trust me folks, there NEVER was any intention to restrain/reduce the civil service to just 500,00. That was for you pandatangs to swallow. Rather the real intention was to increase and increase. ...
written by Hopeful, October 12, 2011 20:57:01 Civil servant, what civil servant? Where is the civil in civil-servant? They are doing big favor by being there for you and me! What civil-servant, they are there sacrificing their time rendering service to the country. Where is the civil in civil service, they can take month long holiday to do business in KL back lane just because the Government don't pay them enough. Civil servant, you can't question them....why? Because the vote for UMNO/BN. High rank civil servant love to play golf, always can see them in 5 star hotel attending seminars, to improve quality of service rendered to public. Most seminars must be held far way place, so wont have any disturbance but whole family will tag along(during school holidays). But not all civil servant are as bad. There are some good one as well but very few. Hopefully this will CHANGE.....hopefully lah....... ..
written by Alan Tan Pei Yee, October 12, 2011 20:38:44 Well, economy is like F1. Sudden change in policy will cause havoc. It's not too late to cut down the service. I'm not sure whether is this true or not, but every 1 new person, they pension 7 person. Then, we have to raise their pay+bonus. ...
written by pure malay, October 12, 2011 19:18:33
from the comment put up, i belief majority are non bumi, attacking malays as if the malay are useless. are they realised that the malay are the son of the soil ...
written by i hate kataks, October 12, 2011 16:44:05
My town has 80% Malays and their children upon finishing school all scrambled to "masuk kerajaan".
I ask why choose kerajaan and not the private sector. The general reply was 'tensyen, boring' in private sector but in kerajaan, 'masa depan terjamin'.
Hence there seems to be a high demand for gomen jobs and that will bloat it up even more.
I suggest to cut down on remunerations so as to make it less desirable and hence less demand for it. Afterall, the quality of service these gomen servants are providing now really do not justify their pay. ...
written by JimatCermat, October 12, 2011 16:04:12
Again and again this issue has been brought up. But nothing is done about it. The exit mechanism in the civil service should be something that is put into action, rather than merely a suggestion. Guess how mane of them are doing part-time business during office hours..... Its high time for public be given the chance to sack civil servants who are not performing. After all, we are paying their salary man..... ...
written by soboi, October 12, 2011 15:54:27
Easier said than done la..how to deflate? No private company will employ them unless they can be part of the 30% bumi participation on paper purposes...kesian...the rakyat need to find a way to overcome this problem...Pakatan..please give us some suggestion yang bernas...we are behind you all the way. Perhaps this should be YM Pete's next thesis la..after the "Election Manifesto"... ...
written by Bourne, October 12, 2011 15:43:56
The civil service has long been known as a 'parasite' living off the nation. Every govt dept I have gone too are full of inept, lazy, tak apa attitude and cluelesscivil servants. Its a massive outflow of resources without any corresponding return in productivity.
Its no surprise that M'sia has one of the highest cvil servant to population in the world. When the private sector wants to recruit, only a handful of candidates are willing to come forth, but when the govt advertises for positions, tens of thousands turn up! Why? Its obvious. ...
written by PC Kay, October 12, 2011 15:35:09
In the Prime Minister’s Department, besides the personal officers of the prime minister and his deputy, there are five full ministers, five deputy ministers, ministerial advisers and 45 other agencies.
Speaking of high profile positions, you know lah, need to help cronies. Cronies in turn don't want any position without important sounding title, so create more redundant and non-functional teams/sections/departments. Then these cronies bring in their sub-cronies, sub-sub-cronies, so on and forth.
Sadly this is not isolated to government offices, same too is happening in businesses. Sometimes there's more managers than necessary needed. Worse still is when these so-called managers start to claw each other out hahaha. Worser still these so-called managers clawing down higher managers. I do know, my ex-company's founder get booted out by these so-called managers.
It's a M'sian mentality. Cronies' back must be scratched else they stab you instead of scratch you.
Watch your back. If you catch a flash of light by the corner of your eye, know this nobody use metal things to scratch someone else's back. ...
written by eloofk, October 12, 2011 15:26:22
Its a well-known fact that the Civil Service is BN/UMNO's VOTE BANK together with the 2 million recently legalised illegal immigrants from the Project IC. ...
written by albert zacharias1, October 12, 2011 15:03:22
Government servants are Raayat's burden lah... Vote the Blurdy BN out of government yesterday. Today or tomorrow is too late lah!!! Farkau. ...
written by Itsmeagain, October 12, 2011 15:02:42
ONE DAY ALL THIS IS GOING TO EXPLODE IN OUR FACES, AND IT COULD BE SOON, PEOPLE WHO WANT TO WITHDRAW THEIR EPF WILL FIND THEY MAY HAVE TO WAIT FOR SIX MONTHS,
CIVIL SERVANTS WILL FIND THAT THEIR SALARIES ARE BEING PAID EVERY THREE MONTHS,
THE CRUNCH IS COMING SOON, THE GOVT WILL FIND IT HAS RUN OUT OF FUNDS, PETRONAS MAY NO LONGER BE THEIR SAVIOR BECAUSE SOON WE ARE RUNNING OUT OF OIL TO SELL,
WITH THE POLICIES OF THIS GOVT WE ARE DOOMED AS A NATION, THIS BLOATED CIVIL SERVICE AND CORRUPTION WILL BE THE END, SOON YOU WILL SEE PEOPLE FIGHTING FOR FOOD
YOUR MONEY VALUE WILL DROP BECAUSE PRODUCTIVITY WILL NO LONGER BE EQUAL TO MONEY PRINTING, IT WILL BE A FREE FOR ALL SITUATION, BE PREPARED FOR DOOMSDAY.
Dr Ismail Aby Jamal
Born in Batu 10, Kg Lubok Bandan, Jementah, Segamat, Johor
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