PUTRAJAYA: Second Finance Minister Datuk Johari Abdul Ghani has refuted reports quoting him as saying that the number of civil servants has brought down the government's productivity.
Johari, in a statement today, said also did not give statistics to compare civil servants in other countries, contrary to a published news report he was quoted in.
"What I said to Oriental Daily was the total number of civil servants and the emoluments paid by the government in 2016.
"My statement was manipulated by the opposition," he said.
On Feb 1, an online portal reported the concern expressed by Johari that the bloated civil service of 1.6 million has caused government expenditure to rise annually, leading to a drop in revenue.
“When I first entered the Cabinet, the country was facing a variety of dilemmas — floating oil prices led to reduced government revenue, ringgit devaluation, high cost of living and political controversies — which have made my work more challenging.
“One of the issues that we have to address is the ever-increasing government operating costs and expenses.
“For example, we have about 1.6 million civil servants, which is the world’s largest proportion of civil service,” Johari was quoted as saying in the news report.
He was also quoted as saying that based on the country’s current population of 31 million people, the ratio is one civil servant to 19.37 people.
The news report also quoted him as saying the proportion of civil servants to the national population in other countries such as Singapore is 1 to 71.4 people; Indonesia 1:110; Korea 1:50, China 1:108, Japan 1:28, Russia 1:84 and United Kingdom 1:118.