RM1.5b salary boost for civil servants

The government says every civil servant will get between RM80 and RM320 under this measure.

PUTRAJAYA: The government today announced for all civil servants a salary movement benefit of one annual increment, brought forward to July 1 this year.

Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak, who made the announcement, said this would mean every civil servant would receive between RM80 and RM320.

“This measure will involve an expenditure of RM1.5 billion,” he said in addressing the 13th Premier Gathering of the Civil Service, which carried the theme “Transforming the Civil Service, Realising Vision 2020″, here.

Deputy Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin, other Cabinet ministers and the Chief Secretary to the Government, Ali Hamsa, were also present at the event.

The prime minister also said that effective Jan 1 this year, three additional annual increments would be provided after the maximum salary on the salary schedules.

“This will enable 182,434 officers on the maximum salary to enjoy an annual salary movement from this year, subject to regulations in force,” he said.

Najib said all the announced initiatives were part of the New Remuneration System (NRS), which would henceforth be known as the Transformative Remuneration System (SST).

“Hopefully, this initiative will help motivate the civil servants in their service to the nation,” he said.

Najib said that in the event there was no salary adjustment or review to ensure that civil servants remained productive and performed well, the government agreed to give a special salary movement of three percent to those on the maximum salary, provided they met the conditions of the stipulated annual salary movement and performance.

The prime minister also had good news for the almost 50,000 contract officers whose service would end on Dec 31 this year. He said their service would be extended by another year pending an overall study.

He said the government also agreed to improve the implementation of promotion of the implementers group by reducing the period for promotion from 15 to 13 years of service.

“This will benefit more than 17,000 eligible civil servants. The criteria of evaluation of the excellence of civil servants, which forms the basis of promotion dependent upon the period of service, will be finalised with all the interested parties,” he said.

Better career paths

Najib also said that the government had agreed in principle to the methods of implementing promotion, namely fast-track promotion, promotion based on subject matter experts and promotion based on highly skilled personnel.

“The methods of implementation, including development of the criteria and structure of the special panel for the three methods would be fine-tuned prior to implementation,” he said.

The Public Service Department (PSD) has begun discussions with the respective heads of service or department to improve the 22 associated schemes of service in terms of widening of scope, functions and duties.

“The schemes of service in the salary grades one to 10 will be upgraded equivalent to the Penilaian Menengah Rendah [PMR] entry qualification,” said Najib.

Among these schemes of service are office assistant, driver and tradesman K3.

“With the improvement to the schemes of service expected to be completed by the end of this year, some 166,541 holders of posts will benefit in terms of better career paths and salary grades,” he said.

Meanwhile, 81 schemes of service which had been improved but had not been implemented would be renegotiated with the heads of service or departments, he said.

These involved the art and talent scheme of service, technician scheme of service, officer or assistant officer and mining assistant scheme of service and tradesman K1 and K2 scheme of service, he added.

- Bernama