By Shazwan Mustafa Kamal November 01, 2010
Malaysian Insider
KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 1 — The Najib administration will provide Parliament with a comprehensive list of civil servants who have broken disciplinary regulations and “lack initiative” Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz said today.
The minister in the Prime Minister’s Department said that the government had compiled a list of civil servants who had flouted the Public Officers (Conduct and Discipline) Regulations 1993, and this included those who were behaving like “little napoleons.”
“The government has taken action against all officers who have broken the rules. Bagan (MP Lim Guan Eng) claimed that there were officials behaving like little napoleons. We will take preventive and punitive action if we find that officials to be portraying the actions of little napoleons,” said Nazri during his Budget winding-up speech in Parliament.
The matter was first brought up by DAP advisor and Ipoh Timur MP Lim Kit Siang, who had asked for the government to provide figures for the action taken against “little napoleons” in the civil service.
In response, Nazri said he could only provide details on officials who were either underperforming or broke the rules.
The minister said that he would compile the data first from the Public Services Department (PSD) before presenting it in Parliament.
“‘Little napoleon’ is just a term for officers who make things difficult in the delivery system. But I will be giving a list of officers who have flouted the rules and regulations of the civil service,” said Nazri.
Lim appeared unsatisfied with Nazri’s answer, claiming that Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak himself had acknowledged the presence of “little napoleons” within the civil service.
“The PM has said that there exists a problem of little napoleons in the civil service. Can you give a figure the actions taken on the little napoleons?” the DAP advisor asked Nazri.
Lim added the government’s “unresponsiveness” in answering questions properly in Parliament had also contributed to the poor public perception of the country’s civil service.
When the minister refused to address the DAP man’s demands, as well as questions from other Pakatan Rakyat (PR) lawmakers, Lim stormed out of Parliament in a huff.
Minutes after leaving the House, the Ipoh Timur MP posted a message on popular micro-blogging site Twitter saying: “Walked out of Dewan in protest when Nazri ends after two hour answer without answering corruption issues like (the) worst TI (Transparency International) CPI (corruption perception index) or Najib’s Umno speech.”
When met by reporters later, Nazri said that matters which had not been addressed in the initial stages of the parliamentary debate on Budget 2011 could still be brought up at the committee stage.
“I will answer everything,” said Nazri.
PR states such as Penang, which is under the administration of Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng, have claimed in previous months that civil servants were “uncooperative” and did not respect the ruling state government.
In a highly-publicised spat between Lim and Penang State Development Officer (SDO) Nik Ali Mat Yunus then, the chief minister claimed that Nik Ali had been obstinate with regards to an illegal sand excavation investigation.
The accusation then escalated into a verbal war between Nik Ali and Lim, with the federal officer retaliating by calling Lim an “insolent, uncivilised and a coward” during an Umno function.
Other leaders including Kit Siang and Chief Secretary Tan Sri Mohd Sidek Hassan also waded into the fray, turning the spat into a open confrontation between the civil service and DAP.
Sidek also accused Guan Eng of being “excessive” in his remarks and has given his assurance that Nik Ali would not be reprimanded for criticising a chief minister.
Ai yo yoh, U know I know everyone knows UmnoB/BNputras depend on LN n also BIG N 2 keep them in power n 2 bash non-BN kakis
How 2 believe Nazi 2 name n punish LN n BIG N; no way, Jose lah
Just like d annual blatant big makan write-ups in d Auditor-General’s Report
Year in year out, blatant abuse of public funds n corruptions, yet hardly any actions taken
Ban ban tan lah, boh su eh
So sick of reading all d corruptions happening throughout d nation
We must not vote 4 UmnoB/BN, but must vote 4 PR in d next GE
Nik Ali is an idiot. Makan gaji buta. Period. so are the other two in bred teachers in Johor and kedah. They have a brain but hardly used.
Can we have the email address of Nazri so that we can give him some of our list to help him with the list?
I have a list a dozen for him.
The Chief of Justice, Chief Justice of High Court, Judges, ….
The Police/AG/DUP/PCB…
BNM…
Or, we better have time posted somewhere to save his work?
How about taking action against errant (defeated in elections but appointed) ministers who were behaving like “little female napoleons?”
http://media1.malaysiakini.com/295/9f31a544754af5aea235032e3d4d7706.jpg
Oh yes I am sure nazri meant well. But it is he alone against the whole umno. What can he do? The fear of backlash, i.e. losing civil servants’ support in GE13, is enough for umno to hold back and not act. The worse that can ever happen to a flouting civil servant (esp senior ones) is a transfer. Big deal. Sooner or later nazri would become frustrated enough to call it a day in umno.
This is Malay Ketuanan arrogance against the pendatangs.
The pendatangs are only needed to pay income tax to pay their salaries of these Tuans.
I have doubt whether the government would punish civil servants who have comitted wrongdoing since they are kingmakers of the BN government.
yeah it’s a “I help you, you help me syndrome”.
A government that is running scared of the police and civil servants has lost all authority to lead the nation.
So how to become a high-income nation? Maybe they omitted that the high-income was for only 5% of the people!
What is Nazri giving to Parliament? It’s “a comprehensive list of civil servants who have broken disciplinary regulations and “lack initiative” “who had flouted the Public Officers (Conduct and Discipline) Regulations 1993, and this included those who were behaving like “little napoleons” against whom “the government has taken action”….
Now what’s the purpose? In part to contradict LGE that Govt did not take action against errant govt servants; in part to how try satisfy a demanding public/electorate that the govt is doing something in direction of making its civil servants accountable, and in part to shame those errant ones publicly in Parliament so that this public ignominy will serve a deterrent to other potential mischief makers that they no longer can hide behind a maze of rules, procedures, secrecy and subterfuge to cloak their impropriety.
On implications:- please note Nazri is only disclosing names of those against whom govt has already taken action under Public Officers (Conduct and Discipline) Regulations 1993 which of course may represent only the tip of an errant iceberg that does not disclose all of others, the greater proportion of errant ones whom for reasons of political protection, lack of evidence or otherwise no action has been taken. For example will the 2 principals who made racial epithets be on the list? Even Nik Ali Mat Yunus who openly clash with the Penang chief minister being supported by the Chief Secretary may not be on the list, let alone those interrogators in security services, whether police, MACC RMAF RMAF accused of 3rd degree methods! Is it not correct to say that those whom NO action has been taken by govt will not be on the list?
The list does not show how many errant civil servants have escaped action. Now supposing out of 1000 errant little Napoleons, only 10 (ie 1%) have had actions taken against them by the government under general orders since 1993.
Does disclosing in Parliament the names of that 1% with no action whatsoever has been taken against the 99% complained against by the public or their department head constitute a big deal or represent firm action by govt? – Esp when no one knows whether action taken against the few and not the rest is differentiated solely on basis of lack of evidence or other extraneous reasons?
Whatever, such a move to disclose serve a kind of deterrent. I wonder what CUEPACS say – because such deterrence constitutes twice punishment for those already punished! But why use deterrent when the govt and Minister responsible for his department can also otherwise institute direct action against an errant public servant? It could mean that the govt is indirectly admitting its power to act against a runaway body of bureaucrats is limited for the latter has also a myriad of countermeasures to act against their employers, ie by not acting and helping favoured projects implementation, not being sympathetic and bias in favour of govt of the day – don’t forget they are traditional vote bank for the BN and beyond a point the govt. dare not discipline them more even if it knows they make or break it.
“Comprehensive?” Who defines this term ? The UMNO Federal Court ? It’ll be fewer than the fingers on Fat Mama’s diamond encrusted hand.
I am surprised by the simplistic statement by the minister of transport on the driver of the bus that caused the accident” If they do not have license, they should not be allowed to drive!!!” what a naive statement! The issue is why are they floating the law? Because, they believe every thing has got a price in this Bolehland! The sickness of corruption has crept into every vein of the nation that lawbreakers are prepared to do the impossible, knowing very well they can buy their way out of any situation. Minister, this is the main issue facing our society! Nothing else!
I read in the paper recently that the number of civil servants totaled about 1.22 million. I don’t think this figure included staffs employed by the local Government like city councils, majlis perbandarans, majlis daerahs etc. All in all, I think total Government employees should easily exceed 1.25 million or over 10% of the total working population. This is clearly a bloated Government service. In comparison, Singapore’s public sector only accounts for just over 5% of the working population and their efficiency is internationally recognized. Indonesia, Thailand and the Phillippines also have far fewer Government servants on a per capita basis than us. Just to pay the public employees’ salary and the retirees’ pension is already a serious drain on the country’s financial resources.