'More Indians in Penang civil service now on merit'

The employment rate for the Indian Malaysian community in state agencies has improved under Pakatan Rakyat’s rule in Penang due to more “meritocracy practices”, Deputy Chief Minister II P Ramasamy said yesterday.

He said during Barisan Nasional’s rule prior to 2008, very few Indian Malaysians were hired for state agencies like the Penang Public Water Authority (PBAPP) and Penang Development Corporation, the state’s development arm.

“We were very concerned about this issue. Now that we are in power, there is no compromise on meritocracy,” Ramasamy told Malaysiakini.

“Currently, we make sure that good people with the right qualifications get offered jobs,” he added when winding up the motion of thanks to the Governor’s speech at the Dewan Negeri, which ended at 10pm last night.

“If we follow this framework, we can ensure that the employment situation is reflective of the population and represents various communities,” he stressed.

In the Penang legislative assembly yesterday, Ramasamy presented current statistics on the problems the Indian Malaysian community faces when trying to obtain jobs in state and federal government agencies.

He was then replying to a question by A Thanasekaran (DAP-Bagan Dalam) who wanted Ramasamy to provide the statistics of those hired in state agencies.

According to Ramasamy, the number of Indian Malaysian officers and staff in the public service in Penang is 887 or 11.5 percent of the total workforce in the agencies, which is 8,028.

“This compares to the total number of population of the Indian community in Penang, which is 160,500 or 10.6 percent of the total state population of 1.5 million people,” he said.

For the year 2012, the Seberang Prai Municipal Council (MPSP) has 287 or 11 percent Indian Malaysians out of 2,618, the total number of employees, he said.

“For PDC, out of 217 people, 33 or 15.2 percent are from the Indian Malaysian community,” he stressed.

Thirty-three or 38.37 percent members of the Indian Malaysian community were hired by Perbadanan Bukit Bendera, which manages Penang Hill, said Ramasamy.

At the PBAPP, 262 or 21.92 percent out of 1,195 Indian Malaysians are working in the agency, he added.

‘This is just the beginning’

He conceded that the state government has to do more, adding, “This is just the beginning”.

“We are trying, slowly but surely, to carry out some human resources restructure in state agencies,” he said.

“We want hiring policies to be fully based on merits, so that only good people can come in, and we want this policy to cut across all communities and racial barriers,” he added.

During the session, state opposition leader Jahara Hamid (right) questioned Ramasamy on his remarks on meritocracy.

“Do you mean to say that all these civil servants here were employed not on their merits?” she queried.

Ramasamy replied that he did not mean it quite that way when he argued that meritocracy was necessary to ensure an effective civil service.

“The previous administration did talk about recruiting people based on merits but they did not really enforce the system,” he said.

“In the past, people were often hired based on political criteria and the agencies never really practised meritocracy.”