Govt pampers civil servants for GE support

With the new budget, national debt is expected to reach an alarming 54% next year.

KUALA LUMPUR: The government’s series of pro-civil servant policies in the Budget 2014 is a gesture of gratitude to the civil servants for supporting Barisan Nasional in the recent 13th General Election.

The Federation of Chinese Association Malaysia (FCAM) honorary secretary-general Chua Yee Yan said the government is pampering the 1.4 million civil servants despite the country’s debts hitting close to an alarming 55% of the gross domestic product (GDP).

Unveiled by Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak at the Parliament yesterday evening, Budget 2014 comprised a total allocation of RM264.2 billion and is set to raise the nation’s debts from the initial 51% this year to 54% next year.

“Like what (Najib) said in the speech, orang berbudi kita berbahasa, so the main theme of the budget was to fulfill his election promise, especially to the civil servants.

“Civil servants are now being given half month bonus with minimum RM500 early next year, and the government has raised the family eligibility to apply for monthly RM180 taska (babysitting) subsidy for those who earn RM3000 to RM5000,” he told reporters yesterday evening.

Besides this, the government has also promised to review the salary schemes of 81 categories of civil service starting November. He also announced a RM250 special financial assistance payment for pensioners.

This is despite the recent July additional annual increments disbursed to all civil servants which involved an allocation of RM1.6 billion.

In additional the government also paid out to the same group special Hari Raya assistance of RM500 and RM250 respectively.

Too many civil servants

FCAM economic study committee chairman Kerk Loong Sing pointed out that civil servant emoluments will make up RM63.6 billion of the RM217.7 billion operating expenditures next year.

“This means we have just too many civil servants.

“We must take into accounts that the government is planning to hire more civil servants and the existing civil servant’s retirement age has been extended

“On top of that, the retired civil servants would live longer with the advancement of healthcare technology, which means the government has to fork out more pensioners.

“In the long run, the government’s burden would get heavier and the problem would be extremely hard to solve,” he said.

Kerk also said the rising operational expenditures would come at the expense of lowering development allocations.

“Since 2002, our operating cost has made up 80% of the total budget. Next year, it will be 82.4%.

“It means we don’t have much funds to develop healthcare, transportation and other relevant sectors,” he said, referring to the development budget which was only RM46.5 billion.

Review GST

Meanwhile, FCAM president Pheng Yin Wah urged the government to review the imposition of 6% goods and service tax in April 2015, saying that it was too high to start with.

He said regional countries such as Singapore and Thailand started implementing the GST with only 3% and 5% respectively.

“It would become a hurdle for the country to achieve its target of becoming a high income nation by 2020.

“The government should do another round of feedback collection, to avoid burdening the rakyat or consumers,” he said.

He also asked the government to be flexible in implementing the restrictions on foreigners to only purchase properties worth minimum RM1 million.

“This should be made flexible according to areas, because in places like Kuantan, the prices of properties seldom go above RM400,000.

“The blanket restriction would curtail the development and transaction of property sector,” he said.

Pheng meanwhile said he is satisfied with the allocations for Chinese-related affairs.