Abdul Halim Ali said it is important that they do so since he learned from his own experience that such “orders” would come through phone calls, and not through written orders.

“Ministers won’t issue a letter asking (civil servants) to do this (and that), they will just call,” he said in a Sinar Harian interview with veteran journalist Johan Jaafar.

Halim, who is also the president of an alumni group of retired administration and diplomatic officers, said he had advised civil servants to advise politicians to not commit unlawful acts when they are ordered to do so.

“If he insists on committing the act, the civil servants must record what they were ordered to do, and they need to share the recording with their superior officers in the ministry.

“Let them (superior officers) know that they were ordered to carry out deeds that they should not be doing,” he added.

He also said having such a recording could be useful in the future should they land in trouble when the ministers are probed by the authorities.

“Who knows that one day when the ministers’ unlawful deeds are exposed by anti-corruption agencies, at least we can show the proof that we advised the ministers (from committing unlawful acts) and yet they insisted on committing them,” he said.