Extensions becoming routine
By Tengku Razaleigh
Of late there has been a tendency for the Government to routinely extend and re-extend the service of top civil servants scheduled for retirement.
Extension of service is meant be an extraordinary measure. It is in danger of becoming the norm. This is bad practice.
- It politicizes the leadership of a service that has its own processes and criteria for promotion. Those extended become, in effect, political appointees with rather cosy relations with the political bosses who determine these extensions.
- Public servants owe their allegiance to King and country, not to politicians. It is by an accumulation of bad practices like this that the once independent ethos of the civil service has been eroded.
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