As rightly pointed out by the prime minister recently, the civil service in Malaysia is bloated. It is so big that we could face problems in the future paying retired civil servants.

When more than 1.7 million people are on the government’s payroll, it says a lot about the size of the problem facing the nation. It is also hard to reduce the figure, says the prime minister.

The real issue is not the number but the right number for each ministry.

Certainly, we cannot just reduce our armed forces, police and fire services immediately. There have to be formulas that are strictly adhered to, to determine the optimum for each category of employment.

The next step is to trim the contract workers through retraining or VSS while reducing budgets allocated to ministries to ensure that only those needed are retained and those who under perform are dropped.

All ministries which fail their KPIs should be expected to shed excess staff as a first step towards improving their quality of services. With IT, the number of employees should be lowered, much like the banking sector.

Previously the pressure not to reduce civil servants was due to political reasons; today, facing billions of ringgit in deficit, the government has to boost the economy for the private sector to boom and employment to rise.

Capping intake and reducing foreign nationals is crucial to ensure higher wages which will entice Malaysians overseas to return, especially those with skills and expertise.

Investors are fully aware that a bloated civil service is a sure sign of a country with a bleak future, and massive bureaucratic red tape that usually results in corruption. We have to look at China as an example of how progress is possible given the right economic stimulus and leadership with focus on improving people’s welfare.

Philip Wong is the director for Sarawak Institute for Public Affairs.

The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of FMT.