Last week's fantastic outburst by Entrepreneur Development Minister Nazri Aziz over the Anti-Corruption Agency's (ACA) investigation was the funniest thing I have ever read.

It is timely to remind him and other ministers that they are all public servants. As recipients of tax money, they are all answerable to the public, including our prime minister.

We did not vote them in to be our bosses, as Nazri mistakenly assumed. We voted them in to work for us. And if they do not do their job properly, they answer to the taxpayers.

What is funnier is that Nazri disparagingly claimed that ACA enforcement head Nordin Ismail is "only a civil servant".

What then is Nazri, if not also a 'civil servant'? Where on earth did he get the idea that ministers - or "politicians" as he calls himself - are our "political masters"? This is symptomatic of what is wrong with our ruling party, and indeed our government.

If I had a say I would prefer our government not to be inhabited by "politicians" but by people who work honestly and selflessly for the rakyat . But unfortunately most of the people who make to office are "politicians", but that is by no means a right, dear Minister!

This kind of erroneous attitude has spread through our civil service like cancer - even policemen think they are the bosses and we, their subordinates who should listen to what they say.

If Pak Lah wants to change the civil service for the better, he might start right here, by changing the mindset of the counter clerk right up to the cabinet minister that they serve the people, not the other way around.