A PRESIDENT, A QUEEN and TWO PMs

From Blog

According to The Nut Graph, studies by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development that reveal that Malaysia has the highest civil servants-to-population ratio in the Asia Pacific. Then, DAP national publicity secretary Tony Pua said Malaysia had a bloated civil service - Malaysia’s ratio was 4.68%, compared to Indonesia’s 1.79%, Korea’s 1.85% and Thailand’s 2.06% all of which have less than half our ratio.

Last week, MP Liew Chin Tong revealed in his blog, that the Prime Minister’s Department’s allocation for 2010 is a whopping RM12 billion, not RM4 billion as some people may have perceived it to be. That's a lot of money! Like many Malaysians, I wondered why that department is NOT tightening the belt like what the rest of us are doing in the light of subsidy cuts and warnings of imminent bankruptcy by 2019.

Based on MP Liew's blog, I have summarized a few astounding facts:

A. Staff size of the PMD

Year: 1981
PM: TDM
Staff size: 4,414 staff in the PMD

TWENTY YEARS LATER

Year: 2001
PM: TDM
Staff size: 9,673 ( this is an increase of 119.14% after TWENTY YEARS)

Year: 2003
PM: Badawi
Staff size: 21,045 in 2003 (this is an increase of 117.564% in TWO YEARS)

Year : 2009
PM: PM Najib Razak
Satff Size: 25,332 (this is an increase of 20.37% over 6 years)

Year 2010
PM: PM Najib
Staff size: 43,544 people (this is an increase of 71.893% in ONE YEAR!!!!)

After that mathematical exercise, I decided to compare the budgets of our PM with that of the US President , Singapore PM and the Queen of England.

I was quite amazed that the information is readily available in the net.

Bekas KSN: KM tak sepatutnya gaduh

Ketua Menteri Pulau Pinang, Lim Guan Eng, sepatutnya tidak bergaduh dengan Pegawai Kemajuan Negeri (SDO) Pulau Pinang Nik Ali Mat Yunus di khalayak umum, menurut Persatuan Alumni Pegawai Tadbir dan Diplomatik (PTD) di Kuala Lumpur hari ini.

Presiden persatuan itu Tan Sri Sallehuddin Mohamed berkata prosedur yang baik untuk Lim ialah dengan melaporkan kepada Jabatan Perkhidmatan Awam (JPA) atau Ketua Setiausaha Negara (KSN) jika beliau tidak berpuas hati dengan pencapaian pegawai berkenaan dan memintanya untuk dipindahkan.

Sallehuddin, yang juga bekas KSN, berkata: "Kita percaya bahawa SDO itu, sebagai seorang pegawai awam yang sangat kanan, memang menyedari sepenuhnya kod etika perkhidmatan awam yang baik.

"Dalam kes ini, beliau mestilah dengan sangat marah di khalayak awam berikutan dengan kekecewaan yang sangat dan provokasi yang dilaporkan dalam akhbar."

Sallehuddin berkata persatuan itu memandang berat pergaduhan antara Ketua Menteri dan SDO Pulau Pinang yang dilaporkan dalam akhbar sejak seminggu lalu.

Beliau mengulas ketegangan antara Lim dan Nik Ali di mana Ketua Menteri itu didakwa telah membuat beberapa kenyataan mengkritik SDO tersebut berhubung antara lain isu perlombongan pasir di Balik Pulau.

"Sebagai kakitangan yang telah bersara yang telah berkhidmat pada kadar lebih 30 tahun dalam perkhidmatan awam dan sesetengah telah menjawat jawatan tertinggi dalam sektor awam, kita tahu bahawa ada prosedur dan prinsip tingkah laku kakitangan awam yang perlu dipatuhi.

"Salah satu prinsip ialah kakitangan awam diharap memberikan khidmatnya dengan kerajaan pada masa itu, dengan mana-mana parti politik yang berkuasa.

"Sehubungan itu, dalam konteks situasi di Pulau Pinang, adalah menjadi tanggungjawab semua kakitangan awam, termasuk pegawai persekutuan, di sana untuk berkhidmat dengan kerajaan negeri," katanya

- Bernama

Guan Eng takes on the Chief Secretary

By Clara Chooi, The Malaysian Insider
Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng accused Chief Secretary to the Government, Tan Sri Mohd Sidek Hassan, today of preferring to defend his “little Napoleons” instead of upholding the integrity of the civil service.

Lim mocked the country’s top civil servant for speaking up for Penang State Development Officer (SDO) Nik Ali Mat Yunus, and challenged Mohd Sidek to admit if he planned on ending his career protecting “little Napoleons like Nik Ali”.

“Is the Chief Secretary going to end his career in a year’s time by defending these little Napoleons? Or will he defend the civil service, as a professional public administrative body?” he told a press conference in Penang this afternoon.

The DAP secretary-general claimed that the state had “suffered in silence” for the past two years with Nik Ali’s uncooperative ways and would continue to do so.

“Since the Chief Secretary does not want to replace him, then the status quo is maintained,” he said.

He claimed he had attempted to meet with Mohd Sidek a few months ago to discuss Nik Ali’s behaviour but the meeting had been cancelled.

“I tried but I failed. A few months back, an appointment was made but he cancelled it at the last minute even though I was in Kuala Lumpur.

“No new date was fixed,” he said.

Lim expressed disappointment at Mohd Sidek’s apparent readiness to support Nik Ali’s use of words like “biadap” (insolent) and “dayus” (coward) on a chief minister.

The spat between Nik Ali and Lim originated from Pulau Betong assemblyman Muhamad Farid Saad’s claims last week that illegal sand excavation was taking place at a plot in Kampung Kenanga, which had been earmarked for a government polytechnic.

Lim had responded to the allegation by saying that the state would not be able to probe the matter as Nik Ali had not been cooperative.

The accusation escalated into a verbal war between Nik Ali and Lim with the federal officer retaliating by calling Lim “insolent, uncivilised and a coward” during an Umno function.

Since then, other leaders including DAP adviser Lim Kit Siang, and Mohd Sidek himself, have joined the fray, turning the spat into an all out battle between the civil service and the DAP.