No sabotage from civil service, just bad habits from BN era - Khalid

Federal Territories Minister Khalid Abdul Samad today dismissed the notion that civil servants are sabotaging the Pakatan Harapan government.

Instead, Khalid insisted, they are just not used to Harapan's style of governance, due to habits carried over from the previous BN administration.

"The civil service are just used to the methods, vision, and work culture under BN.

"For example, there are decisions that we want them to make for themselves, but they dare not do it. They want to wait for the minister's decision instead," he said during a press conference in Putrajaya today.

Khalid pointed out that this is a result of politicians interfering with professionals in the service.

The minister said that by right, politicians should only set the vision and direction of public policy, and leave implementation to civil servants – a process which he admitted would take time.

"We have to proceed with the reform process, where we handle the civil servants, convince them to follow the new leadership and share our vision.

"It is another level of change, it can't be forced, and will take time."

Khalid said that once this can be resolved and the government can operate more smoothly, the situation will slowly improve year by year, in time for the next general election.

Meanwhile, on MACC investigations into the Kuala Lumpur City Hall's past land and development deals, the minister said action will still be taken even if these deals are renegotiated.

"If they (developers) previously bought land (from DBKL) for RM40 million, but after renegotiations agreed to pay RM60 million – if there was corruption in the earlier deal, the new deal won't save them," he said.

Despite this, he noted, developers have agreed to pay the renegotiated sums as they better reflect the actual value of the land. - Mkini