The Malaysian civil service has gone bonkers

By MT Webmaster Last updated Mar 2, 2016

Yes, the new protocol regarding the channel of communications between various branches of the government, including the police, special branch, military intelligence, army, navy, air force, etc., would be to call for a press conference or issue a press statement or both.

NO HOLDS BARRED

Raja Petra Kamarudin

The United Kingdom is going through a debate that is not only dividing the politicians from both sides of the political fence but also politicians within the same party. And this debate is regarding whether the UK should remain in the European Union or leave. And British citizens will be able to vote in a Referendum on 23rd June 2016 as to whether they still want Britain to be part of the EU.

The British civil service has been told that even if they have a personal opinion on whether the UK should stay in the EU or leave the EU, the job of the civil service is to support the government. A statement yesterday carried by the BBC and made by a spokesman from the civil service made this very clear.

The civil service was reminded that their job is to defend government policy. And since currently the government policy is to stay in the EU then this is the policy the civil service must support even if personally they have the opposite view. If after the 23rd June Referendum the policy changes then the civil service must support this new policy as well.

In other words, the view of the civil service does not count. Only government policy does. And the civil service must support government policy whether they agree with it or not. This is the high level of professionalism of UK’s civil service, which the Malaysian civil service does not even come close to.

Maybe the Chief Secretary to the Government or the Ketua Setiausaha Negara (KSN) can impress upon the Malaysian civil service that this is the level of professionalism the Malaysian civil service should emulate. The civil service is not a government within the government. It is part of the government.

Currently, some within the civil service are at odds with the government. When the government goes left these people in the civil service go right. And they use all sorts of excuses to move in the opposition direction to the government — such as corruption, abuse of power, etc.

Basically, what those in the civil service are doing is nothing short of insubordination, whatever the excuse may be for that insubordination. Insubordination is still insubordination by whatever name you want to call it.

But then where does the fault lie? Do we blame the civil service or the head of the civil service? At the end of the day it is the head of the civil service who has to take the blame, which is the KSN.

Whether the KSN is just weak or he is tacitly opposing the government by allowing those within the civil service to be insubordinate does not matter. Either way both are bad and would justify his removal.

Take the ongoing episode regarding 1MDB and the RM2.6 billion as one example. We no longer know who is in charge and who is the official spokesman. It has become a cowboy town with everyone shooting at the same time. And sometimes we do not even know who is the target.

Can you imagine the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission’s Operations Review Panel (MACC-ORP) communicating with the MACC by issuing press statements through the media? Is there no proper channel and proper protocol for their internal communications?

When next? Will Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi be calling for a press conference so that he can send a communication to his boss, Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak? Can’t Zahid just walk next door and knock on Najib’s door to discuss whatever it is he wants to discuss?

Does the KSN’s wife send him a message through the media to ask him what he would like for dinner? I am sure since they both sleep in the same bed they can discuss this triviality without getting the media involved.

It looks like everyone is talking to each other through the media nowadays. Whenever one branch of government has a message to deliver to another branch of government, or to the head office, etc., they call for a press conference or issue a press statement.

One day we will see the CPO issuing a press statement to all his OCPDs about the new PDRM policy. The OCPDs, in turn, will issue another press statement for the benefit of all the officers under his command.

Then the Chief of the Armed Forces will call for a press conference so that he can inform the heads of the various branches of the military about their new strategy on how to protect the security of the country. The various branches of the military will then issue press statements to inform their commanders about the new secret strategy to be adopted to strengthen the security of Malaysia.

Raja Petra Kamarudin RPK