Cuepacs says 1.7m civil servants 'not too many'
Following a complaint by Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad that the civil service was too big, the Congress of Unions of Employees in Public and Civil Services (Cuepacs) has contended that the increase of civil servants was in line with the overall growth of the Malaysian population.
According to Sinar Harian, its president Azih Muda said he respected Mahathir’s view nonetheless.
“Mahathir mentioned that there were only one million civil servants when he left the government in 2003. The Malaysian population was only 16 million then. Now, it has increased to 32 million.
“In the past 16 years, many schools, hospitals, police stations and military control centres have been built to serve the growing population. For Cuepacs, the 1.7 million civil servants is not too big,” he was quoted as saying.
While Azih claims Malaysia had a population of 16 million in 2003, World Bank data shows the population that year to be above 24 million.
At a Defence Ministry event yesterday, Mahathir had said that the civil service ought to be reduced, further suggesting that technology could be used to help manage the size.
However, he also recognised that doing so would cause unemployment and cause “social problems” for the country.
Azih urged the Pakatan Harapan government to maintain the civil service at its present size.
“We believe that the existing number of civil servants will help our country grow,” he said.
In fact, Azih opined that perhaps more civil servants were needed.
“Our visits to government hospitals have shown that hospital staff have not increased even though patients have increased. There are also many patients in daily clinics, but not many people work there.
“The staff are under pressure and don’t even have time to eat or drink. How would you feel if you were understaffed?” he asked.
62 years of cushy Govt jobs, medical benefits and high pensions (50% of Last Drawn salary and , upon death of the pensioner, the spouse STILL gets 75% of the deceased's pension) has got to wind down, buddy! According to the Treasury’s Economic Outlook 2019 based on Ministry of Finance figures, Malaysia’s monthly pensions and gratuities (a lump sum given to civil servants when they retire) show a disturbing escalation over the last 30 years. When looking at the 2000-2019 period, the sum of the Malaysian government’s annual retirement charges have grown rapidly from about RM4 billion p.a. to around RM26 billion p.a. — six times higher in under 20 years. Next, salaries.Government spending to pay emoluments or the wages of civil servants have always been the single largest component of its operating expenditure, usually below 30 per cent. From just almost RM16.36 billion or 28.9 per cent of the operating expenditure in 2000, government spending for emoluments have gone up to almost RM81.33 billion (34.5 per cent) in 2018 and about RM82.05 billion (31.6 per cent) estimated for this year. The Ministry of Finance estimates that there are around 812,000 pensioners and beneficiaries as of 2018. With 1.6 million civil servants, this makes a total of 2.4 million people that our taxes must support!, just to run all the services the government provides.
Hello Cuepacs President Azih Muda,the 1.7 million civil-servants is very much bloated as compared to 32 millions population.Against productivity,the ideal size for the civil-servant should be less than 1.2 millions Pakai lah otak sikit and compare our size of civil-servants to our neighbouring countries which is much smaller.Just walk around the canteen or the mamak stalls at 10am in the morning and you will find uniform civil-servants still enjoying their morning breakfast.
For your information the 16 million population was 40 years ago..not in 2003. How can the population jump from 16 million to 32 million in just 16 years..that means we are populating the country at approximately 1 million a year. It’s ludicrous!
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