A day late and dollar short sums up PKR’s civil service carrot
“If you want to give me a pay hike because you think you can stop corruption, you are assuming that I am corrupt in the first place”
Daniel Ayathurai, The Malaysian Times
Winning the civil service hearts and minds seems to be Pakatan’s latest election strategy.
After a slew of perks, including unprecedented bonuses and salary revisions by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak, the Pakatan Rakyat is getting , albeit a little late into the game.
Upping the stakes in the race for support from the 1.5 million-strong civil service ahead of Election 2013, PKR proposed today an “anti-corruption” annual bonus for civil servants should the opposition win federal power.
The Najib government has instituted salary revisions for the police, armed forces and civils servants over the last six months.
He has also thrown in a couple of bonuses during the main festivals in the country, especially during Hari Raya.
PKR trade and industry bureau chairman Wong Chen claims that the PR’s incentives “ would help slash the country’s corruption bill while enlisting the help of the civil service through dangling monetary incentives before them as motivation.”
Several civil servants, contacted by The Malaysian Times (TMT) described the Pakatan bait as “demeaning” as it assumed that all civil servants are corrupt.
“if you want to give me a pay hike because you think you can stop corruption, you are assuming that I am corrupt in the first place,” said Idris Yusof (not his real name).
Another senior officer said that the move by Pakatan was merely imitating what the ruling BN had been doing all the while.
“They are jumping on the bandwagon now. They realise too late that we have been working overtime to get the goods to the people for the last 55 years,” said Tan Chee Leng (not real name).
Meanwhile, Wong said the Pakatan incentive would be above the other attractive incentives that PR has already offered to workers in both public and private sectors, which include a RM1,100 wage floor and salary reviews every three years.
However, analysts see that any further civil service increments could have inflationary effects and cancel out whatever was being given out.
At current levels, inflation was controllable and money being pumped into the economy has been calculated to balance out any other negative factors.
Najib is expected to call for elections by the end of the month in what many believe will be a bruising GE13. The BN is expected to win by a 2/3 majority, analysts say.-TMT
