Corrupt civil servants will eventually be booted out: Chief Secretary
By : Hamidah Atan NST
PUTRAJAYA, Fri: 29 Feb 2008
Corrupt civil servants will be sidelined and, eventually, given the boot. Chief Secretary to the Government Tan Sri Mohd Sidek Hassan said even if the court of law had not decided on their cases, "we, in the civil service, will use existing rules governing civil servants, to ensure they are sidelined.
"And once the court of law decides, we will make sure there is an exit for them as we do not tolerate corruption," Sidek, who is also Pemudah co-chairman, said this after a meeting with Pemudah members at his office yesterday. He later presented Pemudah's annual report, the first for the task force set up last year to facilitate all aspects of doing business in the country and improve the public service delivery system. Also present was Pemudah other chairman, Tan Sri Yong Poh Kon.
Pemudah's 2008 commitments includes overhauling of services at land office, local authorities and frontline agencies, ensuring merit-based performance standards and increasing ethnic diversity in the public service, raising market activity for a competitive economy, driving balanced development through eradication of poverty and instilling a culture of serving with integrity and zero-tolerance to corrupt practices.
Saying he was not in a denial syndrome as far as corruption involving civil servants is concerned, Sidek added the problem, however, was not that prevalent. "If you are talking about 1.2 million in the civil service, we are not angels. There are some who stray but as far as I am concerned, we are not tolerating. We have zero-tolerance for this."
Continuous efforts and activities were being carried out to prevent the people from committing corruption. "That is why we go to a great extent to build the Malaysian Institute of Integrity.
"We are also telling the people and students that corruption is a no-go area, not only in terms of religion but the others. Don't let it happen and we have to make sure it does not happen."
Pemudah would also be relentless in efforts to improve Kuala Lumpur's ranking in the World Bank Report. Malaysia ranked 24th of 178 countries in the World Bank Doing Business 2008 Report. The World Bank had itemised the areas where Kuala Lumpur could improve further, he added.
"I believe when the results (following Pemudah efforts) started coming in, we will no longer stay at 24 but higher,” he said. "We are doing this not for the World Bank or the World Trade Organisation (WTO) but for ourselves. However, if this process by Pemudah can improve our ranking and public service delivery, that will be a double bonus. With the World Bank pressing us, we are pressing ourselves. The prime minister is the worse pressure cooker for us. He is the one who insisted that we do all this because he is the leader of this country. He wants to make us competitive and we are doing all this for our country."
Sidek also said there were some who were sceptical whether Pemudah could make a difference. "After presenting the six-month progress report to the prime minister on Aug 17, he decided that Pemudah carry on the work that it had begun and to keep up the momentum for change that it had successfully put in place."
The annual report, Sidek said, documented the fact that government's exhortations about making improvements to public service delivery had moved beyond rhetoric. "You will note from our annual report that we worked on urgent and important areas with high public interface. Time-consuming and dispensable processes are discarded."
