Errant civil servants face promotion bar of up to four years

The Star

SEREMBAN: Civil servants who have been demoted due to disciplinary reasons cannot be considered for a promotion for four years.

Those who had their salaries reduced for breaching employment rules will also not be in the promotions list for three years.

The Public Service Department, in efforts to check indiscipline, said those penalised for absenteeism would also not be entitled for a promotion for 18 months.

“We want to safeguard the image of the civil service. This is also to ensure government employees ad-here to all rules and procedures,” it said in a circular.

The PSD said civil servants who were fined for dereliction of duty would also be blacklisted for a year.

Over the past five years, 2,918 government employees have been sacked for various offences and 4,527 given warnings.

The PSD said from 2002 to 2006, disciplinary action was taken against 10,438 federal employees.

Last year alone, 2,955 cases were registered compared with 2,724 in 2005 and 1,804 in 2004.

During the same five-year period, similar action was taken against 7,390 police and 4,819 army personnel.

“We have fine-tuned some of the regulations to ensure government employees understand these laws.

“Department heads have also been reminded to monitor their subordinates and issue them warnings if they do not toe the line.”

The PSD said Chief Secretary to the Government Tan Sri Mohamed Sidek Hassan, in a recent meeting with all ministry secretaries-general, had agreed that disciplinary cases referred by the Anti-Corruption Agency must be resolved within six months.

The PSD said counsellors had also been sent to ministries and departments to help problematic employees.

“To date, we have 6,000 counsellors trained to handle such situations,” it said, adding that disciplinary action would only be taken if offenders persisted in their errant ways.