A STATUTORY minimum wage and a 10 per cent increase in the cost of living are behind the new grades for civil servants recently announced by the Public Service Department. Several lower grades, namely Grades 17, 22 and 27, will be abolished. These will be replaced with higher grades. Pursuant to the revision, basic salaries will increase. Allowances will, however, stay unchanged. Civil servants then will, apart from their yearly increment, have the privilege of enjoying a basic income more in line with the cost of living, thus maintaining their standard of life. They are also entitled to government loans with low interest rates and may opt for a pension plan. Indeed, good days are ahead for civil servants. All this courtesy of our taxpayers which, of course, includes them, too.
Unfortunately, there is much that is amiss with the civil service. The most worrying is the recent surfacing of cases of corruption amounting to millions of ringgit being lost to public coffers. It is especially galling when those who are paid from public funds bleed the country’s economy; leakages that could easily add to allocations for public welfare and wellbeing. Try looking at the opportunity costs incurred: how many jobs could have been created if such abuses do not exist? This is, of course, the worse they can do to the country. Then, there are the unending complaints of red tape, hostile counter services, an under-performing education system, long queues at hospitals and many more. In short, not up to par delivery of public services. This type of inefficiency, too, impacts negatively on the overall performance of the economy. If then, their remuneration package is being improved despite their wanting performance, the public has a right to demand more from them. One does not see the private sector rewarding their employees for underperformance. Indeed, when outcomes are not measured in profits, it is fair to argue that performance cannot be calibrated accurately. However, when crimes are committed on the job, and can be concealed, this means that the system is malfunctioning and in need of rectification.
Over the years there have been substantial improvements in the bureaucracy. That Malaysia is ranked a desirable foreign investment destination is indicative of this. Today, passports and all manner of official documents are almost instantly given a hot-wire treatment. Nevertheless, a clean and efficient public administration has yet to arrive. Transparency remains a problem. Letting the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) loose has proved positive, but when an MACC officer is arrested for corruption, then the gatekeeper is itself defective. Max Weber, the German sociologist, argued that bureaucracy is the most efficient and rational way of organising human activity, but to arrive at this proposition, officers manning it must be neutral and intent on arriving at a given objective. Somewhere along the line then, weak links occur to enable a distortion of the procedures. That favouritism exists within the hierarchy, for instance, means promotion is not based on performance. Unsupervised delegation of duty is another factor that contributes to a flawed service. Can the public expect better soon?