The government will neither increase nor reduce the number of civil servants but will instead seek to redeploy staff if new designations are required in future.

Chief secretary to the government Ali Hamsa said the current 1.6 million in the public service was sufficient as they had been trained to undertake multi-tasking after the redundancy of certain job positions.

He said the government had taken this measure since 2012 in an effort to reduce management expenses in the public sector and this was still being practised to this day.

“All existing and new civil servants must always be prepared to equip themselves with various skills and competencies.

“We do not reduce civil service staff but possibly when some posts are no longer necessary we replace them with new designations according to current needs,” he told reporters in Kuala Selangor today.

Elaborating, Ali said his office had received several requests for additional staff in the government agencies, including the security sector, but this would have to be evaluated as the requests must be justified.

In this regard, he said the government would have to review if redeployment was more appropriate to avoid redundancies.

He also reminded civil servants to ensure that they achieved their objectives as set by the department's key performance indicators (KPI) in line with the government’s aspiration in making 2017 a public service delivery year.

Earlier, Ali officially opened the RM4 million Sekolah Menengah Kebangsaan Raja Muda Musa, Bestari Jaya multi-purpose hall, courtesy of Rafulin Foundation for the benefit of the school and neighbouring communities.

Ali urged other parties including the corporate sector to work with the government towards infrastructure development in educational institutions.

- Bernama