MAMPU Sedia Khidmat Pelan Strategik ICT Dengan Bayaran 25 Peratus

KUALA LUMPUR, 24 Dis (Bernama) -- Kerajaan dan agensi-agensinya hanya perlu membayar 25 peratus daripada kos untuk membangunkan Pelan Strategik Teknologi Maklumat dan Komunikasi (ICT) apabila menggunakan khidmat pasukan perunding ICT Sektor Awam (PPICT) yang disediakan Unit Pemodenan Tadbiran dan Perancangan Urusan (MAMPU).

Ketua Pengarah MAMPU Datuk Normah Md Yusof berkata berbanding menggunakan khidmat konsultan ICT swasta yang boleh mencecah sehingga RM500,000 untuk setiap projek, perkhidmatan yang disediakan agensi itu hanya melibatkan kos kira-kira RM100,000.

"Ia bersesuaian dengan matlamat kerajaan yang mahu mengiktiraf lebih ramai ramai pakar ICT dalam sektor awam untuk mengurangkan kebergantungan terhadap konsultan swasta," katanya pada sidang akhbar selepas melancarkan Pelan Strategik ICT Jabatan Agama Islam Wilayah Persekutuan (Jawi) di sini Khamis.

Menurut Normah selain Jawi, Lembaga Pelabuhan Johor, bahagian penyelidikan Jabatan Perdana Menteri serta pejabat Setiausaha Kerajaan Negeri Pahang telah mendapatkan khidmat MAMPU.

"MAMPU juga sedang membangunkan projek untuk pejabat Perdana Menteri, Perpustakaan Negara Malaysia serta Majlis Keselamatan Negara yang dijangka selesai pada akhir Januari tahun depan," katanya.

Beliau berkata PPICT yang diketuai Dr Zahari Othman telah diwujudkan pada 1 Dis tahun lepas dan bertanggungjawab untuk memberikan khidmat perundingan antaranya perancangan strategik, pengurusan projek, pembangunan sistem serta pangkalan data.

Mengenai Pelan Strategik ICT Jawi, Ketua Pengarah Jawi Datuk Che Mat Che Ali berkata ia selaras dengan saranan pihak kerajaan supaya setiap agensi kerajaan menyediakan pelan itu bagi menyokong visi ICT sektor awam.

"Projek ini memakan masa selama enam bulan. Ia sebagai langkah awal ke arah memastikan maklumat mengenai pentadbiran dan operasi hal ehwal agama peringkat Wilayah Persekutuan dapat disampaikan dengan lebih berkesan," katanya.

Che Mat berkata antara aplikasi yang dibangunkan Jawi adalah E-Munakahat yang menguruskan mengenai pendaftaran perkahwinan, cerai dan rujuk serta E-Hidayah yang digunakan untuk pendaftaran maklumat saudara baru.



-- BERNAMA

If it’s silent, it must be English Day

KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 17 – A colourful poster was e-mailed to some 400 staff of the Malaysian Administrative Modernisation and Management Planning Unit, or Mampu, recently.

Also posted in lifts and on notice boards, it read: “Monday is English Day. Just Speak!”

It is all part of an effort by some Malaysian government agencies to get their employees to use English more, so as to improve the fluency of civil servants in the language.

Mampu, a unit under the Prime Minister’s Department, held its first “English Monday” on July 27, and it created a buzz among employees.

Everyone was encouraged – in e-mail messages, prayer recitals, announcements and meetings – to speak English as much as possible that Monday.

“We want to boost the competency of all staff in speaking English,” a Mampu spokesman told The Straits Times.

The Retirement Fund Incorporated, or KWAP, which handles the pensions of some one million civil servants, is reaching for the same goal by taking a fun approach.

Investment and fund managers play a game of Scrabble or two to improve their vocabulary. Regular public speaking and book review sessions are held.

Employees also write investment papers, presentations, the minutes of meetings, and blog entries in English. It is quite a switch from Malay, which is used throughout the rest of the government.

“For an investment company, it is very important that your English is up to the mark, because all the investment reports and analyses are in English,” KWAP chief executive officer Azian Mohd Noh told The Straits Times. “There are no two ways about it, you have to master your English.”

It even invited the British Council to test the staff and conduct courses in articulation and grammar.

Such measures have paid off. According to Datuk Azian, some 70 per cent of KWAP employees speak English well. Another 20 per cent who understand the language shy away from speaking it.

“We still need to do more. English is important. If you work in the financial sector and deal with international counterparts, it will be a setback (if your English is not up to par),” she said.

These measures come in the midst of a long-running row over English standards and the use of English, instead of Malay, to teach Science and Maths in schools.

Over nearly four decades, Malay has become important for political reasons and is now a very sensitive issue.

English was the medium of instruction in schools until it was replaced with Malay in the 1970s.

The soft push for the use of English at the workplace has been prompted by criticism that the standard of English has declined alarmingly since.

As a result, Malaysia’s global competitiveness has suffered, with many graduates possessing inferior English language skills, critics say.

A controversial policy to use English to teach science and maths in schools was scrapped last month, after six years of protests by critics who say that students and teachers struggled with it.

Along with its decline in schools, English has also been neglected by most civil servants. With Malays making up 80 per cent of civil servants, many, apart from higher-ranking officers, prefer to use Malay daily. Thus there is some resistance to programmes that require them to speak English.

One Mampu worker joked that it would be a “Silent Monday”, referring to the fact that many would prefer not to speak to avoid speaking in English.

“My English is a little rusty,” she said. “Most people still speak in Malay, but I guess in a more formal setting like a meeting, they converse in English.”

There is no penalty if an employee switches to his mother tongue, so the move is just a gentle nudge to ease civil servants into grappling with the language, broken or otherwise.

An internal e-mail said: “Only a number of personnel are really into this programme. Do not worry so much about speaking grammatically correct. Practice makes perfect.”

A chief clerk with a district land office in Selangor said that her command of the English language deteriorated after she stopped using it when she joined the civil service 28 years ago.

“Even today’s graduates can’t converse in English very well,” she said.

The clerk said that the state government had tried implementing English Thursdays and other programmes but that they never got off the ground.

But some insist that such programmes can succeed.

A former civil servant of five years said: “Even if they speak broken English, it’s good for them to build confidence.”

She said she often ended up doing a lot of administrative work when travelling on overseas assignments, even when the support staff were meant to handle it, because of communication breakdowns.

“A lot of them can’t speak or write in English. That’s what happens when you keep speaking the same language,” she told The Straits Times.

But some analysts feel that the entire system needs a major overhaul, including using English in all official documents.

“You need at least one competent speaker in a government department for this sort of programme to work,” said analyst James Chin of Monash University Malaysia Campus. “If all of them are not competent, it will not work.”

He pointed out that the English policy that was scrapped from schools last month failed because too many teachers were not fluent in the language.

“If department heads are not fluent, subordinates will follow what they do,” said Chin. “Until they get real English speakers in the civil service and allow the use of English in all official documents, instead of just Malay, it will not work.” – The Straits Times

Murugiah Dan Pegawai MAMPU Akan Periksa Perkhidmatan Kaunter Jabatan Kerajaan

SHAH ALAM, 28 Jun (Bernama) -- Timbalan Menteri di Jabatan Perdana Menteri Senator Datuk T.Murugiah hari ini berkata beliau bersama 30 pegawai Unit Pemodenan Tadbiran dan Perancangan Pengurusan Malaysia (MAMPU) akan "turun padang" ke seluruh negara dalam masa terdekat bagi memeriksa dan menilai perkhidmatan kaunter agensi dan jabatan kerajaan.

Beliau berkata pemeriksaan ini dilakukan bagi memastikan tahap perkhidmatan yang diberikan kepada orang ramai oleh pekerja-pekerja kaunter seperti di hospital-hospital adalah bermutu dan memudahkan rakyat dalam berurusan dengan jentera kerajaan.

Murugiah berkata demikian dalam satu sidang media selepas merasmikan Mesyuarat Agung Kelapan Persatuan Pencegahan Jenayah Malaysia (PPJM) di sini hari ini.

Selain daripada perkhidmatan kaunter, khidmat talian bantuan yang diberikan oleh jabatan dan agensi kerajaan juga akan dinilai bagi memastikan konsep "1Malaysia, Rakyat Didahulukan, Pencapaian Diutamakan" tercapai.

Pada masa yang sama, beliau meminta PPJM supaya memainkan peranan lebih aktif dalam membantu Polis DiRaja Malaysia (PDRM) membanteras jenayah dengan memberi bantuan maklumat mengenai kegiatan jenayah kepada pasukan itu.

Katanya anggota persatuan itu juga boleh pergi ke sekolah-sekolah dan memberikan kaunseling kepada para-para pelajar yang mempunyai masalah disiplin ataupun terlibat dengan kegiatan gangsterisme yang semakin membimbangkan.

Beliau juga berkata alasan bahawa tiada pekerjaan disediakan kepada mereka yang menganggur tidak dapat diterima kerana di Malaysia masih lagi ada pekerjaan hinggakan warga asing sanggup "bergolok gadai" untuk datang ke Malaysia mencari sesuap nasi.

Mengenai perpaduan di Malaysia, Murugiah berkata satu cara untuk kaum-kaum di negara ini mengenali budaya dan agama kaum lain ialah dengan menggalakkan program anak angkat.

Melalui program itu yang diadakan pada masa cuti sekolah, murid Cina duduk seminggu di rumah keluarga angkat India atau Melayu dan begitu juga sebaliknya.

Dengan cara itu, generasi muda akan lebih memahami antara satu sama lain dan mengikis prejudis dan prasangka yang bertapak di dalam hati mereka, katanya.

-- BERNAMA

An award worth winning

The Star

By LEOW YONG MAY

EFFICIENCY is the key to success. The public delivery service is constantly being improved and government departments and agencies that have successfully displayed excellent administration deserve to get the credit.

For this reason, the Malaysian Administrative Modernisation and Management Planning Unit (MAMPU) is organising the Public Sector Quality Awards (AKSA) for the 18th consecutive year to reward government agencies that have excelled.

Introduced in 1990, the Awards are to create awareness on quality in the public sector and provide formal recognition to government agencies that have good management and leadership skills.

The Public Sector Quality Awards are now divided into two tiers: Upper-Tier and Lower-Tier.

The Upper-Tier level gives formal recognition to any government agency that has excelled in managing the organisation as a whole. Awards in the Upper Tier category consist of the Prime Minister’s Quality Award (AKPM), the Chief Secretary to the Government’s Quality Award (AKKSN), the Director General of Government Service’s Quality Award (AKKPPA), and the Director General of MAMPU Quality Award (AKKP MAMPU).

For the Lower-Tier level, awards will be given to acknowledge agencies that have shown excellence in specific areas.

They are the Information and Communication Technology Quality Award (AKICT), Local Authorities Quality Award (AKPBT), Finance Management Quality Award (AKPK), District and Land Administration Quality Award (AKPDT) and Project Management Quality Award (AKPP), which is a new award introduced this year.

There are different criteria for each award and the shortlisted agency has to make the presentation to a panel of judges. For AKPM, the panel is chaired by the Director General of MAMPU with a team of senior officials of various ministries.

Every agency looks forward to winning an award which reflects the good work done by the staff. The top award, the Prime Minister’s Quality Award, is the ultimate prize.

“There is a deep sense of pride when a government agency wins the AKPM for the Public Sector award,” says Mahat Bahari, MAMPU Deputy Director General (Administrative Modernisation).

“Apart from being recognised for their dedication, the agency that wins this prestigious award is allowed to use the ‘Q’ symbol as well as the statement, ‘Winner of the Prime Minister’s Quality Award’, on its letterhead for three years.”

Winners are allowed to contest again after three years. The healthy competition among agencies helps promote a better management system that will not only benefit the public service but also the public at large.

Last year's winner was Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia. There has been a two-time winner before: the Malaysian Agricultural Research and Development Institute is an agency that has won the AKPM for the Public Sector twice, in 1992 and in 2005.

The winner of the AKPM this year will bring home a trophy, a congratulatory certificate, and a cheque of RM50,000.

All the winners will be announced at the Public Sector Quality Awards Ceremony 2007 to be held on Nov 30.