Analysis by Dr. Lim Teck Ghee on “Civil Service Reform”
Our civil service is three times larger on a per capita basis than the Laotian one. Compared with Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines, we are overstaffed by more than 50 percent.
Written by Dr. Lim Teck Ghee, CPI
The recent announcement by the PM that the Government will act to recruit the best brains for the civil service is a clear admission that the government has failed to practice merit-oriented recruitment in the past, and that the performance of the civil service has suffered as a result. The public, however, is cynical about promises of reform and change which do not produce results.
The PM would do well to set up time-lines and bench marks for these and the other reforms that he has recently announced. If little or no progress is made on them, the PM can be sure that he will be made accountable at the next elections. To monitor these civil service reforms – and this should include extending them to the universities and reducing the emoluments for the public sector which the PM has noted is a staggering sum – I suggest that the PM posts them on his blog and prepares a half yearly report on the progress in implementing them. This monitoring – made transparent to the public – will help convince many skeptics, including myself, that the PM is serious about bringing change and not simply engaging in political rhetoric.
