Political will for ultimate top notch civil service

I must admit that I never like to deal with government departments or agencies.

For one and I believe most of the people would readily concur with me is that it is a troublesome affair especially when we deal with some incompetent civil servants and are made to run around just to settle trivial matters .

Worse still, we may end up at the departments only to find the civil servants nowhere to be seen taking their much “deserved” tea break.

Of course there are some real good competent and more than helpful civil servants whom we must acknowledge and give them their due credit.

When Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak proposed three structural reforms for the civil service two months ago, many people may cast their doubt on whether such reforms could mean anything other than just a mere rhetoric.

But let us look at the three reforms.

First, there must be a multi level entry into government service, meaning to say the civil service will open up its key positions to talents from the private sector and the government linked companies (GLC).

Najib had said during the 10th Civil Service Premier Assembly at Putrajaya International Convention Centre on April 28 that this was necessary as it would yield benefits of “cross fertilisation”.

Second, the civil service will adopt an open door policy with GLC to allow exchange of officers between civil service and GLC.

This means that civil servants would be seconded to GLC or vice versa for mutual exchange of knowledge.

Third, the civil service would recruit top talents and adopt recruitment plan similar to big corporations like Petronas, Bank Negara and Permodalan Nasional Berhad where there is a systematic career development and talent scouting plan.

According to the Prime Minister, the best civil servants would also be sent to world renowned institutions such as Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and Wharton Business School at University of Pennsylvania to gain knowledge in a good effort by the government to improve the civil service.

So far so good as far as what the Prime Minister had said and no doubt about his initiatives.

Four paradigm shifts were also outlined by Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak to deal with the much needed facelift of the civil service.

First, civil service must be more flexible and the Prime Minister had said that the civil service should realise that it is the private sector that creates wealth and it cannot be the stumbling block to that pursuit.

Second, the civil service must move away from the culture of output and expenditure to one which values aspect of holistic outcome or result oriented, for instance the civil service should not emphasise on the number of meetings or overseas trips but the outcome of such effort.

Third, the civil service must move away from bureaucracy and finally, it must move away from mere productivity to a combination of productivity, creativity and innovation.

Well said and that is what is needed for a better civil service though this should have been done ages ago but again, nothing is too late.

I take what had been drafted out by the Prime Minister as a renewed hope for many Malaysians who are yearning for a better civil service which has over the years earned more criticism rather than praises from the taxpayers.

The civil service must justify that it is worth the huge amount of emolument allocated to it by rendering a top notch service to every single Malaysians.

Otherwise the emolument of RM28 billion in 2006, RM32 billion in 2007 and a whopping RM41 billion last year as stated by the Prime Minister may just not worth a single cent.

One former Member of Parliament and former deputy minister, Tan Sri Dato’ Seri Abdullah Ahmad stated in an interview with Off The Edge recently that the ideal figure for the civil service should be capped at 600,000.

But today, he said the number of civil servants in the country had reached a whopping 1.2 million and that the government is going to hire another 56,000 civil servants.

Do we really need such many civil servants to serve the 25 million Malaysians in this age of information technology when everything can be done in an instant speed with just a tab on the keyboard?

I leave that to all to judge.

What is important if the government is serious in improving the civil service is that it must put down its feet and say enough is enough.

There should not be any further rhetoric which is only pleasing to the ears but not the eyes and whatever policies which have been made must be ensured to have been implemented without delay.

Of course there must not be a racial bias when it comes to hiring as what we yearn for is good talented qualified people and the half baked ones who would only tarnish the civil service.

Above all, there must be political will without which everything planned or suggested may just end up as yet another rhetoric.