By Kee Thuan Chye
Malaysian Digest
10 March 2012
Najib Razak has just committed another major flip-flop, showing once again that he is the most indecisive prime minister we have had so far.
He has cancelled the proposed revamp of the civil servants’ remuneration scheme and reverted to the old one, the Malaysian Remuneration System (SSM). So much for all his talk about reform.
The now-scrapped Public Service New Remuneration Scheme (SBPA) was mooted to reward civil servants with a pay rise but, more importantly, to keep them on their toes. Its key aim was to transform the civil service into an efficient, productive, competitive and high-performing entity. It was part of Najib’s transformation plans aimed at making Malaysia a high-income nation.
There was to be evaluation of the work of civil servants, and those who did not perform were to have faced the possibility of dismissal – under the SBPA’s Exit Policy. It would have helped to weed the chaff from the grain, to get rid of deadwood. And aptly too, since the civil service is bloated – with 1.4 million employees.
But the civil servants balked at this. They feared that their security of tenure, which they had become so pampered with, might be threatened.
Much more significant than that, those in the lower grades (up to Grade 54) were appalled to learn that under the new scheme, there would be a huge disparity between their salaries and those of the 2,600 officers in the higher grades – a disparity of more than 1,000%. In this case, their umbrage was justified.
Those in Grade 54 and below would receive increments of between 7% and 13%, while those in the upper levels, from Superscale C and above, would reportedly get increments of at least RM5,000.
It was also reported that some employees in the lower levels would be getting a pay rise of as little as RM1.70, whereas the Chief Secretary to the Government would have his salary upgraded to RM60,000 a month, and Staff Grade officers would end up getting about RM36,000 a month.
Naturally, a crisis arose from this. What was meant to be a boon for the civil servants turned out to be a bane for the Government. Continue reading “SBPA Flip-flop a Blow to Transformation”