QUIT MONKEYING AROUND, CUEPACS: Time to trim the fat & stop echoing the BN

It should not be misconstrued by any stretch of the imagination that MBPJ councilor Derek Fernandez believes that all civil servants are monkeys.

There’s a big difference between referring to all civil servants as monkeys and saying “let’s see who the candidates are. If they (Public Services Department) are going to nominate some monkeys, we will reject”. Derek F was commenting on the replacement for MPPJ mayor Mohamad Roslan Sakiman, who has reportedly been victimised by the (PSD) under the guise of being transferred and “promoted”.

It should be Cuepacs that should put its face in the nearest toilet bowl for asking Derek F to apologise for the “monkey remark”.

In any case, it cannot be denied that most of the monkeys in the country are in the civil service, bloated beyond recognition, and leaching off the rest of the nation. It’s high time that half the civil service were summarily dismissed on the grounds of redundancy, not making for diversity, and being in violation of the “reasonable proportion” Special Position clause in the Federal Constitution.

Too many people dependent on government sector

When the number of Federal Civil Servants breached the one million mark not so long ago, Putrajaya began a flurry of corporatisation and privatizations to bring the figure down to 800,000. Not long after that, the figure crept up to 1.2 million, 50 per cent above the 800,000 and 20 per cent above the previous high of one million. Today, there are an estimated 1.4 million civil servants and the figure is still climbing given the rampant nepotism, cronyism, collusion and corruption which plague the sector.

Assuming, every civil servant is married to another civil servant, there is an estimated 700,000 Federal civil servant families alone in the country. At five children to a family, plus father and mother, that makes for at least 4.9 million people dependent on the Public Treasury for a living.

To this must be added the number of civil servants who have retired and living off government pensions, both in the Federal and respective state civil service, and those serving in the state civil service and the GLCs, both Federal and state. We can’t say that these GLCs are not moribund and this further compounds the dismal picture.

We haven’t factored in other dependents like the 2.8 million grandparents on both sides since some of them may be deceased, dependent on other children not in the civil service,  pensioners, or not dependent at all on their children.

The bottom line line is that whatever the actual figure, it’s likely to be way too high for a small nation like Malaysia with a population of 28, 859, 154 last year, according to the World Bank. If left unchecked, the number of civil servants at the Federal and state levels are likely to continue to rise, if for no other reason than to prevent unemployment among university graduates and those traditionally dependent on the government sector for jobs.

Cuepacs should help with a plan to make for smaller government

Instead of barking up the wrong tree on civil servants and related government sector workers, Cuepacs should come up with a plan to reduce the number of people who are a burden on the rest of the nation. This would be one way to reduce the National Debt Burden which stands almost at its absolute limit of 55 per cent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), which (GDP) by the way is smaller than that of tiny Singapore down south across the causeway.

We need a new round of corporatisation and privatizations in the Federal and state civil service, selling off the GLCs at the national level and in the states and imposing a freeze on the intake of new workers. We need to keep potential monkeys out.

This might sound like a hare-brained scheme as it’s likely to have a negative effect on the economy in the short and medium run. However, if we bite the bullet now, the effect on Malaysia can only be positive in the longterm. The question is whether we are going to take the necessary steps now or postpone the inevitable and the evil day.

Those who have to exit the government sector, whether monkeys or otherwise, could be retrained for the private sector, self-employment, for venturing into small businesses including agriculture and agribusiness. Others may consider picking up new skills and joining the two million Malaysians already in the diaspora.

Lessons from continuing Greece Tragedy for Malaysia

We only have to look at the tragedy of Greece where with a population of ten million, one million or 10 per cent were employed in the civil service and at grossly inflated salaries. This means that half the Greek population was dependent on the government sector.

Germany, the European Union, International Monetary Fund and the World Bank all advised Greece that a bloated civil service, non-payment of taxes and government borrowings was not the way to go for the foreseeable future.

Greece was advised that the only way to get back genuine growth was through citizens paying up taxes, placing renewed emphasis on education and competition to secure growth and create jobs.

There are lessons here from Greece for Malaysia.

The Government also needs to stop the current rampant practice of creating Shahrizat Abdul Jalil wannabes under the guise of Bumiputeraism, and other politicians putting the hands in the cookie jar by chanting the mantra on development for the people.

We know what Abdul Taib Mahmud’s politics of development over three decades has meant for Sarawak: the dubious distinction of being the 2^nd poorest state in the country to vie with Sabah, the poorest.

No more monkeys leaching off Malaysians especially when they are not being paid peanuts.

Malaysia Chronicle