A spate of resignations involving top-level positions in GLCs has started to take place, a month after Pakatan Harapan won Putrajaya.

The Edge Markets business paper reported that Mohammed Shazalli Ramly has resigned as group CEO of Telekom Malaysia, while Petronas might see its chairperson Mohd Sidek Hassan and the chair of its remuneration committee, Mohd Omar Mustapha, leave soon.

The report quoted people with knowledge on Shazalli's resignation as saying that Telekom might announce him quitting in the next few days.

Shazalli was previously Axiata Group's regional CEO for its Southeast Asia operations, and came on board Telekom last year.

As for Petronas, Sidek served the last six of over 38 years in the civil service as chief secretary to the government.

He also headed the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Bank Negara's foreign exchange losses in the 1990s, the findings of which implicated Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad.

Omar, meanwhile, is an independent non-executive director at the national oil company and was appointed to the board on Sept 15, 2009.

He was also reportedly an aide to former prime minister Najib Abdul Razak when the latter was the deputy premier.

A week after assuming office for the second time, Mahathir announced that the government will lay off 17,000 political appointees in government posts to save public expenditure.