Inefficient And Unprofessional Civil Servants Responsible For Causing Losses of RM 3 Billon Should Be Punished Or Sacked To Ensure An Effective Civil Service To Achieve A Developed And Competitive Malaysia.
 

Media Statement
by Lim Guan Eng  

(Petaling Jaya, Tuesday): DAP is not surprised at Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi’s revelation that the government had to spend RM3 billion to rehabilitate 172 abandoned projects involving 32,000 housing units due to the failure of government agencies to closely monitor each project entrusted to them. What is surprising is the failure to punish such inefficient and unprofessional civil servants responsible for causing losses of RM 3 billion to the country.

Public interest requires the Prime Minister to punish and sack such errant civil servants for causing such losses to the country. After all RM 3 billion is not a small amount as this is more than the RM 2.2 billion paid by consumers following the recent rise in fuel prices by 10 cents for petrol and 20 cents for diesel. If this RM 3 billion lost from poor monitoring by civil servants can be saved, then there is no need to raise fuel prices at all.

The time has come to weed out unprofessional and inefficient civil servants to ensure an effective civil service that can help to achieve a developed and competitive Malaysia. A country can not progress if civil servants in charge of the government’s planning and development are not of good quality.

If the civil service can not even undertake a simple job like monitoring until the country loses RM 3 billion, then it can not be expected to undertake more complex and sophisticated tasks like economic planning. How can Malaysia inspire investors’ confidence with such poor governance and standards?

A poor civil service is one of the reason for Malaysia losing for the first time in history to Thailand in the World Competitiveness 2005 Report, placing No. 28 to Thailand’s No. 27. For this reason Datuk Abdullah can not be soft-hearted but must resolve to punish the civil servants responsible for the RM3 billion losses.

(12/07/2005)