Economist speaks up for low-paid civil servants

Lift them above the poverty line, Navaratnam tells Putrajaya.

PETALING JAYA: A prominent economist has spoken up for the thousands of civil servants living below the poverty line, urging the government to raise their salaries in the name of humanity and in the interest of productivity at the work place.

“As a former senior civil servant and an ordinary citizen, I am saddened to learn that 400,000 of our approximately 1.4 million civil servants earn salaries that are now under the national poverty line of RM880 per month,” said Ramon Navaratnam in a letter to the press.

He called for an across-the-board pay raise for these workers to at least RM1,200 a month.

Navaratnam, who is the Chairman of the ASLI Centre for Public Policy Studies, said he was moved by a recent statement from Cuepacs that the government had not reviewed civil service wages for 13 years.

He noted that the Cuepacs statement came at about the same time that members of Parliament unanimously voted to pay themselves higher salaries “although many of them have shown good performance only in politicking and mud slinging, while they also earn from other sources and get away with it.”

He wondered how the lowly-paid civil servants were making ends meet.

“How can we expect much from them for this poor treatment? Over the years, the plight of the low-income civil servants has deteriorated with rising inflation and the higher costs of urban living.”

According to Cuepacs President Azih Muda, many civil servants were driven by desperation to take up night jobs. Some drive taxis, some wait on restaurant tables and others engage in various kinds of menial work.

“It’s no wonder that their morale is obviously low and depressing,” Navaratnam said. “Just observe many of them at counter service desks or even when they answer phone calls. They often sound tired, indifferent and also rude. Many tend to distract themselves from their misery by have long coffee and prayer breaks, chatting away and sometimes even selling products and knitting in offices or schools.

“This bad conduct generates poor services to the public. Even if this poor service to the public is typically provided by a minority civil servants, it certainly gives a bad impression of the whole government and of the majority of the civil servants.”

He said the government must explain to Cuepacs why it had not reviewed civil service salaries since 1991 when it was supposed to do so every five years.

He called for the establishment of a permanent commission to ensure the review of salaries at regular periods.