The Malaysian Indian Business Association (Miba) wants a quota to be created for Indians in the public service.

Miba president P Sivakumar said this will help address the problem concerning the lack of non-Malays in the service.

He also urged the Public Services Department (PSD) to be more proactive in its recruitment of non-Malays.

“The Indian community has lost hope and confidence as far as the public service is concerned. This has brought about a serious decline in the community applying for government jobs,” he told Malaysiakini today.

Sivakumar was responding to PSD director-general Ismail Adam who said earlier this week that non-Malays are not interested in government jobs.

This assertion, according to the Miba president, cannot be accepted.

Instill new confidence

Sivakumar said the PSD needs to instill new confidence in its recruitment drive to provide a more multi-racial civil workforce.

“Placing advertisements in vernacular papers and popular websites of available vacancies and providing information on vacancies to non-Malay Barisan Nasional component parties are some of the suggestion community leaders have expressed in the past,” he added.

Sivakumar said there is a serious need to recruit and train Indians as staff nurses, clerks, managers, teachers in primary and secondary levels, technicians both in government and district councils in order to increase non-Malays in the civil service.

“Whenever vacancies for government jobs are placed in adverts, obviously the argument is that there are more Malays applying for the vacancies.

“This is normal and can be expected because in comparison to the Malay population, the Indian population is around 2.2 million.

“Thus a need to protect Indian application can only be met with a quota for Indians in the civil service,” he said.

Disgruntled employees

Explaining further, Sivakumar stressed that although Miba favours a meritocractic system, the poor state of non-Malays in the civil service has left the association with no choice but to call for a quota.

“Although this may seem regressive, a quota system is unfortunately needed as and until the public service boasts of a true Malaysian representation,” he added.

He also suggested that an independent website be created to provide a database on the civil service.

Apart from this, the Miba president also urged the government to look into the concerns of existing non-Malay civil servants.

“They are disgruntled. The government should look into their concerns and promotions,” he said.

Samy Vellu puzzled

In a related development, MIC president S Samy Vellu will seek details from Ismail on the employment and promotional opportunities for non-Malays, especially Indians, in the public service sector.

He was puzzled over why a paper had reported that non-Malays, especially Indians were not interested in government jobs.

“I am surprised over the report. I want to know the latest statistics, after which I will prepare a detailed report to be submitted to the cabinet, the prime minister and the deputy prime minister,” he was quoted as saying in the Star.

He was asked to comment on the report that out of 486,802 of those who applied to work in the public service last year, Chinese and Indians only accounted for 1.78% and 2.5% respectively.

It quoted Ismail as saying that the situation was difficult to change although the PSD had been trying to reduce the gap between the races.

The PSD director said the government had never condoned sympathy or discrimination when hiring new staff, including those at the diplomatic and administration level.