Civil Service = Free Money (Malaysian Context)

Malaysia in the late 60's and throughout the 70's all the way to the late 80's without a doubt had one of the best civil service in this region. The whole government machinery was highly respected and they did a wonderful job of bringing this nation out of it's agricultural economy into the manufacturing and knowledge based economy.

That in turn brought the mass population out of poverty and the middle class was born in this era. The shock of the market crash in the late 80's was well managed and the people didn't suffer too many hardship as a result.

The civil servants were mostly professional and English was well spoken among them and they were regarded at the international level. Somehow slowly but surely the quality of the civil service began to go down soon after.

The civil service became the domain of politicians that brought with them cronyism and corruption into the decision making processes of policies and projects implemented by the government. Talent gave way to who you know in the civil service. Perks never heard of before were introduced to reward mediocre performance as long as one toed the line and were willing to be complicit in massive stealing of the governments funds.

The hiring process was hijacked and over time the civil service has become a way to make free money for most of it's existence. Layer upon layer of unnecessary departments and processes was devised to justify hiring more. And to make things worse, malays owing to their entitlement was given preference over other races without justification.

These among others contributed to what Tun Dr. Mahathir was recently saying here -  https://www.themalaysianinsight.com/s/72989gs. The once proud and efficient Civil Service is now just a glimmer of what it once was. I'm glad that Tun is seeing this and measures are being taken to rectify the situation so that all will benefit from a clean, transparent and efficient Civil Service.

For too long productivity is a dirty word in the Civil Service. What could be done with a few forms most times are purposely made complex and time consuming. The 'minum' culture is so ingrained that a visit to any Government Departments canteen will see most employees just lazing around even pass breakfast time because they can! And they know at the end of the month they'll still get paid even for just showing up!!!

It's time we show the Civil Service some tough love and use more Technology to trim down the waste wherever possible. The key is 'Simplification' of all processes at all levels so that the work flow is shortened to bring faster results.

SIMPLIFY!
SIMPLIFY!
SIMPLIFY!

And the rest will take care of itself over time...... I wish to see a vibrant talented multi raced Civil Service that makes us proud once again....