Cuepacs, the umbrella union for civil servants, plans to submit a memorandum to the Public Service Department (PSD) to review the PTK (Efficiency Level Evaluation) examination to ensure that it is relevant to the aspiration of the government.

cuepacs omar osman 181007 Its president, Omar Osman ( left ), said based on feedback received, the objectives of the PTK had not been fully achieved besides hampering the government’s aspirations under the 1Malaysia Concept “People First, Performance Now”.

“From what we gather, many civil servants are not happy with the PTK because there are some personnel who are excellent in carrying out their core functions, but their performance are not recognised because they failed their PTK exam.

“At the same time, there are those with mediocre performance but were promoted because they passed the PTK. This is affecting the morale of the others, especially those who failed (the exam),” he told Bernama .

Introduced in November 2002, the PTK examination aimed to eliminate the culture of 'apple polishing' and ensuring that only the qualified received recognition.

Omar said the apple-polishing culture could be overcome if salary movements and promotions were handled by an independent committee.

“The department can appoint two or three people who have no direct interest to evaluate the performance of its staff, that is, the head of department has no absolute power to promote staff,” he said.

Omar’s view was shared by National Union of the Teaching Profession (NUTP) president Hashim Adnan, who said that civil servants were being burdened with examinations.    

He said that the government should simplify the process of salary and grade movement, especially for those who had served for so long and were almost retiring but were still at the old salary scale despite having proven their excellent performance in discharging their responsibilities.

- Bernama