KUALA LUMPUR: Instead of repeatedly disputing the size of the civil service, emphasis should be given on ways to improve the public sector's productivity and help to stimulate the growth of the nation.
Bank Islam chief economist Dr Mohd Afzanizam Abdul Rashid said among the improvements that should be looked into by the government include rebranding the civil service.
He said this 'rebranding' should perhaps stress upon future employment aspects in the public sector as well as on providing the best services to society.
"The critical issue is always about productivity and how government employees can help and facilitate growth in private sector's economy.
"This requires those in the civil service to have the right mindset so that their job satisfaction can be derived from giving service to society.
"At the moment, the main selling points of working in government (public sector) is stable employment, good salaries and pension.
"Perhaps, the government may need to rebrand this so that the future employment would focus more on serving society rather than purely monetary sense," he said.
Afzanizam was saying this while commenting on a New Straits Times's Opinion piece published on Saturday, which was written by Datuk Dr Fauziah Mohd Taib and titled "Is It Time To Trim The Civil Service?"
Fauziah in her column pointed out that the Covid-19 pandemic had forced ministries and agencies to embrace the new normal and that more work can be done online.
She said although growth in civil service had provided more jobs, it also resulted in the government having a bigger obligation to service pension.
"I think we need to identify the real issue other than pointing out the size of the workforce.
"Having that said, the government needs to inculcate a multitasking culture among the civil servant. That way it should improve the productivity of government employees.
"What the government needs to do is to review their human resources requirement and identify existing gaps especially when there are various and multiple ministries and agencies which led to overlapping in functions," he said.
Yesterday, in his response to the opinion piece by Fauziah, Congress of Unions of Employees in the Public and Civil Services (Cuepacs) president Adnan Mat commented on the same Opinion piece in the NST.
Adnan had said the current size of the country's civil service with 1.6 million people was still ideal.
This was because Malaysia's definition of what constitutes as civil servants was slightly different as compared to many other countries. Malaysia's definition of civil servants included personnel from the public health and education sectors as well as those attached to security and enforcement agencies.
Adnan described Fauziah's view that the civil service could still operate at 30 per cent capacity as inaccurate and that it could mislead the public.