Syed Hussein hailed Youth and Sports Minister Khairy Jamaluddin for his recent comments criticising civil servants for taking long coffee breaks in the morning, which he said took a great toll on productivity.

“NCCIM believes that the government can lead by example by commencing the process to yield changes,” Syed Hussein said of Khairy’s call for the government to increase productivity.

“An immediate positive step towards this end would be reviewing the civil service’s practice of ‘coffee and nasi lemak break’, which is rampant across ministries and all government agencies”.

Khairy had in a speech last week, said that the quality of work was more important than just the quantity of work, and that more flexibility was needed in working with the nation’s youth to facilitate this.

He had cited as an example the approach in dealing with the issue of civil servants taking long coffee breaks during working hours.

It is common that civil servants clock in at 8.30am but from 9.30am to 10am, many take their “coffee and nasi lemak break”, the minister said.

Khairy said that as far as he was concerned, clocking in on time was not as important as the level of productivity of the employees once they were at the office.

“I like to see people in the office, but I would rather see their work,” Khairy said, adding that he has changed things around in his ministry.