PUBLIC SERVANTS, you may be sabotaging your success and happiness and not even know it.
The moment you walk into the cafeteria at Menara Kuala Lumpur City Hall, any time between 8am through 4:15pm, you will see many people have their meals. Of course, this was about 20 years ago, but the situation has not improved.
It is like the proverbial saying, "Malaysians never stop eating 24 hours." Forget about the lunch and coffee breaks, every hour of the day, there are people eating in the cafeteria.
A resident in my area told me that one day, when she went to the Selayang Municipal Council some 10 years ago, she was suprised to see many of the staff hiding below the table discussing about their multilevel marketing business.
"At the counter, it appeared to be very busy with a lot of people, and a few staff working, but in the office, people were doing something else," she told me, when complaining about the local council.
There is nothing new what my friend said about our civil service. If they are still going on with their business-as-usual, they better wake up now.
Sabotages on the Ground?
In the corporate world, we all know about sabotages taking place whenever a new boss takes over, or when there is a corporate merger. Senior staff are often removed enbloc.
In some corporate takeovers, the policy is slightly different. They give these senior management people the opportunity to work with the new bosses.
When someone is found sabotaging the company business, they are immediately sacked after the inquiry found them to be guilty.
But in the civil service it is different. This is why some civil servants think they can continue to create problems on the ground.
Malaysians are generally very fed-up when they see how these civil servants behave after the change of government. The inconveniences they are creating, they hope to cause people to curse the present government.
Those of us who know what is happening will be angry with the attitude of the civil servants themselves. Their attitude, if not changed, should be warrant their suspension or relocation out of their comfortable seats; otherwise, they government machinery cannot function normally.
In the past, there were a lot of leakages in government spendings. An EPF form for registration of beneficiaries, for example, has some 8-10 pages, mostly had to be removed and discarded when the form is submitted to the officer. A project that costs RM100,000 becomes RM300,000, not to mention all the farewell parties organised for heads of department who retire.
An uncle of mine who returned from Australia told me that on his way back from Singapore, he and his son had to wait for two hours to go through the immigration. It was good of the Immigration Director-General Datuk Ruslin Jusoh to look into the complaint to improve the flow, and after that, I did not hear any other complaints from a few relatives who visited Malaysia.
Just tonight, I received a message from a friend of mine complaining that the office issuing student visa did not have the stickers. This is the conversation between her (CEO of an education groupand someone who contacted her:
For example, a letter is sent to the applicant of citizenship to collect a letter from the ministry. In January this year, a friend told me the process is easy. Her husband only had to take the child to the counter to collect the citizenship certificate.
Now, the applicant has to send an email or call to fix an appointment. This is only to collect the letter which will tell the applicant if his application is approved. Why the double work instead of stating clearly that their application has been successful and they need to collect the certificate of citizenship?
Make an appointment just to collect a letter to know the decision? I don't know how efficient this process is or whether it is necessary. What happens if there is a cabinet reshuffle and the good minister is promoted to a more senior position? Will the decision be reversed without his knowledge? I hope not, and I like to think it will not, but it cannot be helped to wonder why all the beating around the bush.
More Examples
Although Minister of Home Affairs Datuk Seri Saifuddin Nasution Ismail was never on my radar, and he appeared to be aloof initially, I never ceased to be impressed with his dedication to solve the plight of the stateless people.
So far, no other home ministers have looked into this longstanding issue. Immediately after taking over the ministry, Saif has worked very hard to solve the many cases of people without citizenship, who were born in this country and never lived in any other countries around the world. Their lives have been messed up because their plight was long neglected by previous home ministers.
I remember Saifuddin Nasution saying oral test should be simple enough based on conversational Malay. Yet, when a childhood friend of mine who is now in his 70s went for the interview at JPN Jaian Duta, he was asked, "What is the name of the current Agong?" For someone who has little education, but worked his way up to become the managing director of his own family business, he told us that the company has been paying income tax without fail. I tested his Malay, and he was able to respond quite fluently but to pass a written test in Malay, how?
He told me that he also has to sit for a written test in Malay. I was surprised, so I made it a point to go to the National Registration Centre (JPN) at Jalan Duta to ask two officers in charge of citizenship. I was told that this is still the policy because what the minister said to the press, the policy has not been cascaded down. For those who do not know how hard Saifuddin has been working to solve the problem of stateless people, you may think that he is No Action, Talk Only, but I am more inclined to think that someone is intentionally making it difficult for him to do a good job.
Another experience I had last year. I called up the JPN in Kota Damansara because their appointment booking system did not work. A lady picked up the phone. Her advice: "Oh our system is no longer working. You have to come to the office at 8am to pick up a number, and if the number is all given up, you have to come back the next day." This was her attitude; although I reprimanded her, no difference.
The next thing I did was to call JPN in Jalan Duta. What a difference! I was told I could walk in any time before 4.15pm. I did, at about 3.00pm. Within less than half an hour, the application for the IC was done. "Come tomorrow morning to collect the IC," the officer said. Bravo! This is such a big contrast with JPN Kota Damansara.
Oh, I can go on and on with so many other stories, but the bottomline is this: if the civil servants want to continue on with their old mindset, they have no one to blame but themselves if they are suspended, sacked or transferred elsewhere. The public know what is happening; so, we won't be blaming or cursing the Madani government if the civil servants themselves fail to deliver and get booted out. So far I see the Madani government still treat its problematic senior staff and wait for their retirement around the corner and just given them a handshake before they leave.
Watch out!
As it is now, the Malaysia Anti-Corruption Commission is on the third gear. Big and small fish are caught and charged in court for either abuse of power or corruption.
If civil servants think they can get away with it, they better think twice. For example, we all know that police corruption is a huge problem in Malaysia. Even the Inspector-General of Police, his deputy and at least one of the senior department chiefs had openly said it too.
It is not that Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim is trying to betray them after they voted for him. No, instead, he put a lot of attention to make sure that their quarters are repaired and their welfare being taken care of. Plus, all public servants will be getting their salary adjustment end of this year. This is a long awaited adjustment, which is to help them to keep in pace with inflation or be at least on par with the rest of the corporate world.
This is my personal experience. The local Managing Director of a multinational company took over the management of a local partnership company. When the entire gang of senior management left the company, it was already in shambles when I joined. Morale was low; the Human Resources manager was tasked to survey the chemical industry in order to adjust our salaries so that it is on par with the other companies in the same category. This is on top of the annual salary increment. For a new employee who joined the company as a Laboratory Manager, my salary saw a big raise. Plus, my old broken office chair was changed to an executive chair costing some RM2000 back in the 1980s.
Same now with what Anwar is doing for the civil and public servant. He makes sure that they are being taken care of first. Therefore, if their performance still does not improve, instead they try to sabotage the government of the day, I am sure stern actions will be taken against them. They have only themselves to blame.
There is 1.6 million public servants in the country but we are in the majority as the rest of the population is orang awam. Public servants who are ringleaders are only a minority. Once they are removed, the others will start shining again. What if these ringleaders are caught redhanded and had to be sacked? They will lose their pension.
Let's hope our public servants change and together we rebuild this nation to make it a better place for everyone. The good old days where money was splashing around is now over. The country is now burdened with an accumulated debt of RM1.5 trillion! This includes all the interests from earlier borrowings.
Now we see the bribe givers will be charged in court, so be careful if you think you can continue with the old culture. The government’s strong stance against corruption is good news for genuine business people as they know they can compete on a level playing field, with no one having the additional advantage by means of under table money.
I wish to quote veteran activist, Tan Sri Lee Lam Thye:
Hopefully, this will eventually see a situation where under-the-table payments give way to over-the-table service.
Read his statement here.
Also read this to know what is happening on the ground.
Comments
Post a Comment