Friday, May 25, 2007

Civil Service Excellence I

Only Utusan Malaysia followed up on yesterday's story whereby UMNO Youth Deputy Chief demanded an apology from DAP and myself amongst the mainstream press, prior to this morning's press conference. The demand was made in response to my Tuesday statement which sought for the Government to trim the bloated civil service, now that a record pay raise has been given.

And depending on how you read it, they were kind (or unkind) enough to put my picture on the front page! It carried 2 key stories, the first of which was a short conversation which I had with the reporter yesterday, headlined "Tony Pua tidak akan minta maaf"
Menurut Pua, tiada permohonan maaf akan diucapkan kerana mendakwa kenyataannya dalam Malaysiakini telah diputar belitkan oleh Naib Ketua Pergerakan Pemuda UMNO, Khairy Jamaluddin.

‘‘Saya tidak pernah mengeluarkan kenyataan bahawa semua penjawat awam hanya terdiri daripada orang Melayu yang mengalami masalah pengangguran.

‘‘Tetapi, kenyataan yang sebenarnya ialah hanya polisi kerajaan yang memerlukan Jabatan Perkhidmatan Awam (JPA) mengambil ramai graduan yang tidak dapat mencari pekerjaan,’’ katanya kepada Utusan Malaysia di sini hari ini.

[...]

Malah, menurut Pua, beliau pernah mencadangkan supaya jumlah kakitangan awam yang terlalu ramai dikurangkan selaras pelaksanaan program penswastaan sejak 20 tahun lalu untuk mengurangkan beban kewangan kerajaan serta meningkatkan kecekapan sistem penyampaian.

‘‘Salah satu matlamat utama program penswastaan yang dilancarkan oleh Perdana Menteri sebelum ini, Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad adalah untuk mengurangkan bilangan kakitangan awam kepada kira-kira 500,000,’’ jelasnya.

Oleh itu, katanya, program penswastaan kerajaan boleh dianggap gagal kerana jumlah kakitangan kerajaan sekarang adalah dua kali ganda daripada matlamat tersebut.
At the same time, the UMNO Youth executive committee members took their turns to take potshots at me in the corresponding article entitled "Pemuda UMNO terus desak Tony Pua tarik balik kenyataan".

Datuk Abdul Rahman Dahalan, UMNO Youth Secretary:
...menegaskan permasalahan graduan Melayu ialah apabila syarikat-syarikat swasta terutamanya milik bukan Melayu tidak memberi peluang sama rata kepada graduan tersebut. Menurutnya, syarikat-syarikat berkenaan meletakkan banyak syarat yang tersurat dan tersirat sehingga menyukarkan graduan Melayu mendapatkan pekerjaan.

...Abdul Rahman berkata, syarikat swasta bukan Melayu tidak bersungguh-sungguh membantu graduan Melayu atas alasan tertentu.

‘‘Saya tidak percaya, semua graduan Melayu tidak mempunyai kelayakan yang berpatutan untuk memohon kerja dengan syarikat swasta bukan Melayu. Maka, jangan salahkan kerajaan kerana membantu menyediakan pekerjaan kepada mereka,’’ katanya.
Datuk Shamsul Anuar Nasarah, EXCO:
... mengingatkan DAP supaya tidak sekali-kali membangkitkan perkara yang boleh menimbulkan suasana tidak harmoni ketika tumpuan rakyat menyambut 50 tahun kemerdekaan negara. Katanya, memang perangai pemimpin DAP sentiasa mahu menimbulkan isu yang memperlihatkan seolah-olah tindakan dan dasar kerajaan semuanya tidak betul.

Namun, beliau berkata, kenyataan Pua itu jelas memperlihatkan pendirian DAP yang cuba menidakkan sumbangan besar kakitangan kerajaan dalam pembangunan negara sehingga diiktiraf antara yang terbaik oleh masyarakat antarabangsa.
There were also quotes in the physical paper, which isn't available online:

Omar Osman, CUEPACS president:
CUEPACS berasa amat terhina dengan kenyataan angkuh tersebut. Kenyataan aktivis DAP itu seolah-olah memperkecilkan bangsa Melayu. "Dalam sektor awam, ado semua kaum. Tony Pua perlu dapatkan bukti yang kukuh sebelum keluarkan kenyataan sedemikian."
(Me thinks, he didn't read my full statement)

Datuk Dr Nordin Kardi, Yang Dipertua Persatuan Badan Berkanun Malaysia:
Pelantikan ke jawatan perkhidmatan awam berdasarkan kepada kelayakan. Siapa yang layak akan diterima memasuki sektor kerajaan. "Jangan ssekali cuba memperkecilkan dan menghina dasar yang dibuat oleh negara. Nasihat saya kepadanya, jangan mempermainkan isu kaum."
(Read my statement, it's about improving the civil service, not about race!)

This is the best, from Abdul Karim Abdullah, Pegawai Seranta Persatuan Bekas Pegawai Perkhidmatan Pendidikan Malaysia:
Jika bukan kerajaan hendak mengambil rakyatnya bekerja maka siapa lagi? Adakah kita mahu bergantung kepada swasta semata-mata? "Adalah menjadi tanggungjawab kerajaan untuk menyediakan peluang pekerjaan kepada rakyatnya tidak dira Melayu, Cina, Iindia dan kaum bumiputera lain."
What do you think?

In the meantime, there's also a fair bit of response in the Malaysiakini Chinese and Malay editions, where some seem to have made comments without first carefully reading my statement.

Datuk Shamsul Amree Baharuddin yang juga Pengarah Alam Tamadun Melayu (Atma) UKM:
...kenyataan itu merupakan satu andaian yang dibuat dengan hujah yang longgar dan tidak boleh diterima.

Beliau bertanya bagaimanakah mereka boleh mengatakan graduan Melayu tidak berkualiti semata-mata kerana mereka bekerja dengan kerajaan. “Saya ingin bertanya apa ukuran kualiti bagi seorang graduan? Apa ukuran graduan universiti swasta lebih baik dari univesiti awam semata-mata mereka lebih ramai bekerja dengan swasta?"

[...]

Mengulas lanjut mengenainya, Shamsul Amree berkata kenyataan Pua itu lebih mencerminkan pandangan kaum yang diwakili oleh Pua.
First, he misses the point, then he hits below the belt. Hitting below the belt in the above manner isn't his first, for he did the same when responding to the controversial ASLI report which claimed that bumiputera equity had reached 45%.
“I am very sceptical about the study which has been carried out by a particular race. They (the race) usually have their own agendas,” said Shamsul. According to him, the study did not contain accurate facts.
Note that he subsequently denied have said the above. But it certainly looks like the pattern is repeating itself here.

Two more post on Civil Service Excellence coming up. Looks like I have unintentionally stirred up some heated response through a simple innocuous statement seeking to turn the civil service into a lean and mean "machine".

17 comments:

Anonymous said...

TP,
You have succeeded in riling them up to the point of emotional outburst....

Keep it up...
I wonder if the said party apologises for the kris wielding incidence?

Tsun Tzu will be proud of you :)))

Anonymous said...

CUEPACS president Omar Osman's statement made me choke on my own saliva.

I quote the Asli report:

Malays are heavily over-represented and other ethnic groups, including non-Malay bumiputras, are significantly under-represented. Malays now account for 77.03 percent of the entire civilian civil service. The percentage of Malays increases with level: it is
75.77 percent for the Support Group, 81.65 percent for the Management and Professional
Group, and 83.95 percent for the Top Management Group. This means that the higher the level in the civil service, the more pronounced also is the level of Malay overrepresentation.

More here if anybody's interested.

All sectors have all raceslah ... the day when it doesn't, that's when the non-bumi Malaysian diaspora is complete.

fung said...

Let's look at the multinational companies operating in Malaysia like Citibank, KPMG, Deloitte,etc. All these are "syarikat bukan milik Melayu". It's a fact that the majority of employees in these companies are not malays, so are you going to say that they are anti-melayu?

Anonymous said...

TP,

Your latest entry states: "(Read my statement, it's about improving the civil service, not about race!)"

Your previous entry stated: "...civil service [is] the dumping ground for the politically sensitive constituency of unemployed Malay graduates".

Pardon me, but I think you had contradicted yourself there. You were insinuating that there are so many incompetent Malays out there that the Government had to employ them to win votes. However, that's not the point I'm trying to make. Please hear me out.

Yes, your previous entry may very well be the truth, but was it necessary? Is condemning the Malays going to solve the problems in this country? Your remarks only serve to put them on the defensive and alienate them. How does that resolve racial tensions in the country?

As an analogy: let's say there are 2 brothers - one smart and succesful, the other, well, not so smart and successful. The smarter one gets all the praises and adulation. The other one gets belittled and compared to the smarter one. The latter becomes successful in life and adds more pressure/criticism on his brother, partly because he is ashamed to have a failure for a brother. Now, what are the odds that the insecure and depressed brother ends up being a drug addict/thief/vandal?

fung said...

So the right question to be asked by these politicians is why majority Malay graduates are unemployable in the private sector. The only answer to this is the dismal failure of the public universities where the majority of students are Malays.

Anonymous said...

Holy shit! What kinda quality these people have? They are leading some supposedly influential organizations though.

Did they even read that article? Maybe, the content is too challenging for them. Tony, it might be a good idea to release a dummy version for peeps.

Anonymous said...

this is my comment....as u allow comment: u r very political haughty
p

Mr. Smith said...

The government had in fact admitted that Malay graduates, besides other things, lacked language skills and went on to give them post-graduate training (with pocket allowance)paid by tax payers.
The why were crying that some 60,00 Malay graduates were unemployed?
Some of them are doing mere clerical work in the government departments.
The problem arises when the spade gets mad when called a spade.
Pua, could you tell us what exactly Khiary did at Oxford? You made your million with your brain but it looks like he uses his skin colour and marriage connections to make his millions.

Anonymous said...

I'm referring to KJ's statement regarding the mandarin language requirement in the private sectors. Please note that major companies that contribute main labor forces of the country like Intel, Motorola, Panasonic, Western Digital, and there are thousands more, they do not have the language requirement such as mentioned by KJ. Now if you study the staffs composition of these companies, there quite a large number of malay staffs, but what you should notice is higher ranked staffs majority are non-malays. Why, you may wonder? Meritocracy? You bet! Now I'm not saying there are no outstanding malays, there are! unfortunately the percentage is too few. My respect goes to those who stands out from the rest of pack.

When we talk about qualities, we should be aware that not only on the academic side such as minimum 3.0 CPGA requirement, no doubt the malays are qualified in that sense. The private employers out there are no stupid people. They know the risks of employing someone who does not profit the company. Now, these are the words I wanted to say, "someone who take his own sweet time to do his work from 9 to 5". Someone who does not hava a sense of responsibility. Sounds familiar? That's what happen in the government department isn't it? Does not this shows the working attitude? 3.0 CPGA yeah, big deal! If you are the boss of these company, were you not worried employing someone of this capacity?

Maybe it is because these graduates are choosy, in a sense they want a relax working environment? Maybe it is because these group of people wants to make about RM1.5K a month with much less effort and relax way? So to speak letting go of a great future to serve the country? May I ask, is joining a big private company and making name there not serving the country? If that is the case, then a large porton of the rakyat are not serving the country, including the malays, especially the capable ones. Please apologise KJ.

Silent Me Not AUthor 1 said...

Hi Tony,

It's unavoidable that our "leaders of the nation" will resort to polemic attacks when they can't be bothered to read the articles. In fact, half of them probably made a statement to suck up to mr KJ.

Hold your fort, and know the truth is on your side this time. Becareful with your words though, and i would suggest fellow commentors to be wary of what they say too.

May Hope be with Malaysia.

123 said...

Of all the people, Shamsul Anuar Nasarah and Nordin Kardi should be well aware that the race card strategy had many times been capitalized by UMNO bigots; Hishammuddin brandishing his keris and Najib with his infamous quote of bathing the keris with Chinese blood.

123 said...

With reference to the issue of the Mandarin language as a prerequisite for entry into the private sector, the same can be said for job ads that explicitly state the Bumiputra requirement.

While the Mandarin language can be acquired through lessons, what can one do if they are not Bumiputras by default?

Anonymous said...

Hell yeah, why bumiputera has so many advantages and discounts in buying properties? Why bumiputera can enjoy life without working? Why bumiputera can drive big cars by just saying some dirty jokes in the Parlimen?

TELL US WHY AAB! Stop you elegent silence. It makes me vomit.

Anonymous said...

U certainly seem to be going places especially for such a newcomer, keep on pushing yourself tony

Anonymous said...

good work tony, however now that your in malaysian ploitics it would be wise whenever issuing statements on racial topis to be very subtle as this bunch of hoooligans are always trying to stir up racial feelings and it works all the time. Altough ur piece might be welcomed in a country like sweeden here ppl are still stuck on several backward ideals, u can go far tony but in all respects think like a politician just dont behave like one ok, hahahah.

Anonymous said...

Sweeden? what an example - the land of the neanderthals

Anonymous said...

Hi 123 did najib say that? So pl ask him when we can carry out his order!