Pay hikes for an already bloated bureaucracy

'It is not about whether our civil service deserves any pay rise. The more important issue is why one in 10 working person is employed in the civil service?'

Gov't economic adviser queries civil service pay hike

Cala: National Economic Action Council (NEAC) member Dr Mahani Zainal Abidin is no ordinary economist. She earned an MSc from London School of Economics, a PhD from the University of London, and was a former professor in Universiti Malaya.

Armed with this kind of credential under her belt, her arguments would ordinarily invite attentive audience. Is she correct this time?

Let us do a cross-country comparison, and compare the size of the government bureaucracy of Taiwan and Malaysia. I might be wrong, but I was told that Taiwan, being also a developmental state with a comparable population as Malaysia, has only 350,000 civil servants.

Now compare this figure to Malaysia's 1,200,000, is there not something very wrong?

SMC77: The question here is not about whether our civil service deserves any pay rise or not. The more important issue is why one in 10 working person is employed in the civil service?

Why do we have 1.2 million of civil servants in Malaysia? Taking out the police and army, our nation employs one million. This is a really high number compared to other neighbouring countries.

We should examine whether we can trim down our civil service and improve its productivity. Our civil service indeed needs a structural reform to change its culture and mindset to serve our nation better.

MfM: I support Pakatan Rakyat's idea of recognising housewives, but this should be in the form of a massive tax break as most housewives rely on their husbands for monetary maintenance.

Taxpayers see huge amounts deducted monthly under PCB scheme and a huge tax break would benefit us greatly and reduce the dependance on foreign domestic help when women choose to stay at home and raise their children instead of working.

I am by no means against women working, it just that if either spouse chooses to stay at home for the sake of the children - the future generation of Malaysia - the government should help by giving a massive tax break to these people, especially since they have to rely on a single breadwinner.

This would affect the civil service as well as disposable income would increase by giving a larger tax break.

Onyourtoes: And don't forget, a large portion of public sector employees' income are tax exempted in the forms of fixed allowances.

PKR: Tear gas blitzkrieg an overkill

Anonymous_3f6d: Based on PDRM's (Royal Malaysian Police) figure, RM2 million and 11,000 police personnel and 262 tear-gas munitions were used to control a ‘6,000 Bersih crowd' - that works out to RM333 per person, one tear gas munition for every 23 persons, 1.8 police personnel to control one Bersih participant.

Jedi_Who: We are a third world country with really incompetent leaders. Our government, police and military have been elaborately spending money on top-notch security, riot and military equipment.

Being a peaceful country, they can't really find justification for these equipment, and instead have used it on its own citizens and the political opposition. It's shameful cowardice.

Go and fight the real criminals and terrorists. Children like to play war games with toy soldiers and guns too.

Nik V: What an irony. The taxpaying rakyat's money was used by the BN government against the rakyat, who are supposed to be the bosses of the BN government. This almost sounds like a form of institutionalised gangsterism.

262 tear gas munitions used on July 9 protesters

Werewolves: So, there was no ‘smoke bomb' which the Health Ministry claimed was fired into the Chinese Maternity Hospital's compound.

In that case, this so-called ‘smoke bomb' claim is a lie. Health Minister Liow Tiong Lai, please apologise again.

Clean&Clear: If Bersih had been allowed to hold their protest in Merdeka Stadium, then really the police wouldn't have needed any tear-gas canisters and 10,000 police officers - that would have saved us so much money.

Anonymous: Isn't that excessive force? All the police needed to do was to wait just a few more hours on that day and the crowd would have quietly dispersed.

CiViC: Now if only they could report who fired them and where they were fired. Don't police forces have a system where their officers need to write extensive reports on bullets/ammunition fired?

Bender: Let the entire world know that RM22,000 worth of ammunition had been used by the Malaysian government to shoot at their own people for exercising their right to express opinions. This is Najib's brand of democracy.

Me2011: And here we are struggling to make a living so we can put food on the table for our families with salaries that have not risen in the past 10 years. And they go and waste RM2 million for nothing. - Malaysiakini