By TK Chua

The whole world knows our civil service is the most bloated, at least among developed countries. Not only is our civil service bloated, it is also one of the most well paid when compared with average wages in the country. The rate of increase has been especially significant in recent years, both in terms of high-ranking posts as well as their perks and salaries.

Why then was the Second Finance Minister telling us the obvious by stating the above? What really was in the message when he has also said “the government has no plans to reduce the number of civil servants” despite it being bloated? Instead, he has asked “civil servants to undertake more jobs in their respective departments to increase their productivity”.

Was the minister reminding civil servants to be mindful of their precarious positions and therefore to be grateful?

Seriously why tell us the problem when there is no intention to solve it? If we cannot reduce the number of civil servants in absolute terms, at least we should reduce the intake going forward to bring the ratio of civil servants to the general population to be more in line with those of other countries.

The term “productivity” must not be used flippantly. In its simplest definition, productivity is “output over input”. If we maintain output with smaller input, productivity goes up. If a department is “overcrowded”, reducing the input (manpower) could actually increase the output, and hence its productivity. Surely, the minister must have heard of the law of diminishing returns.

How do we ask civil servants to “undertake more jobs in their respective departments” when many of them are already “semi-unemployed”? If they have no work, is it not futile to ask them to do more?

Overstaffing not only adversely affects productivity but creates interdepartmental jealously and rivalry.

Despite the bloated civil service, lack of manpower is often quoted as the reason for lackadaisical performance. When there are too many accidents at construction sites, we blame it on the lack of DOSH officers. When there are too many accidents on our highways, we blame it on the lack of JPJ officers and police personnel. We hardly hear of reassignments, redeployments and re-prioritisation in the civil service. We only establish more agencies and create more positions.

The GST was supposed to rein in fiscal deficit and to bring government finance to more sustainable levels. But looking at the rate we are going, it would appear that the extra revenue has been largely dissipated given the exponential hikes in salary and pension bills going forward.

TK Chua is an FMT reader.

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