Exit policy should target ministers first
How can civil servants and the public take this policy seriously when it does not apply to those whose under-performance and poor discipline are so glaringly obvious?
Robin Augustin, Free Malaysia Today
How can we expect to create a high-performing civil service when hopeless people are in charge?
Many Malaysians would welcome the announcement of an “exit policy” under which “hopeless” civil servants would be kicked out.
The Chief Secretary to the Government, Ali Hamsa, explained that those who failed in the Annual Performance Appraisal Report would be sacked if they did not improve after a year of retraining.
“Evaluation is done by their boss,” he said. “So we’ll first put them under other bosses and see whether their performance is still below par. Then we’ll give them some form of re-training up to one year. After that, if they are still hopeless, then we have to take action.”
Ali said the policy was aimed at creating a high-performing civil service with integrity.
It is a laudable policy indeed. With 1.6 million civil servants in the country, we have among the highest civil-servants-to-population ratio in the world. The “hopeless” ones should certainly be dismissed.
But to what level does this policy apply? If a civil servant’s evaluation is carried out by his or her boss, who evaluates the boss?
