DAP economic advisor Tony Pua said today that he has no intention to apologise for his remarks on the Malaysian civil service.

"At the moment, I have no intention to apologise," he told malaysiakini when contacted.

Yesterday, Pua alleged that the government sector is a dumping ground for bumiputera graduates who failed to obtain jobs in the private sector.

He said this not only results in a low quality labour force in the civil service but also increases the government's responsibility.

According to Pua, the rising number of civil servants since 1990 especially under the current prime minister signals the failure of former premier Dr Mahathir Mohamad's privatisation programme.

He said that in 1990, the government had 773,997 employees; in 2000, the numbers increased to a total of 894,788 a 15.6 percent increase and since then, the numbers have increased to an additional 210,000 resulting a 23.5 percent jump in a time frame of only six years.

Mahathir's privatisation policies which started 20 years ago were meant to cut the number of civil servants by 500,000 to reduce the government's expenditure.

Reject Pua's statement

His statements evoked the wrath of deputy Umno Youth leader Khairy Jamaluddin who demanded Pua as well as DAP to apologise to the whole civil service as they have continuously contributed to the growth of the nation .

Utusan reported that Khairy brushed off Pua's statements as "baseless" and urged all civil servants to reject Pua's statements as many of them had voluntarily forego golden opportunities in the private sector to serve the country.

Pua claimed that his statement was "taken out of context" by Khairy.

He explained that he was merely "questioning the government's policies" and that his statements "were not meant to insult civil servants".

Pua said he will hold a press conference soon to clear the air over this matter.