Malaysia’s bureaucracy is one of the biggest in the world, with 1.7 million civil servants to a population of 32 million, a ratio of 5.3 percent, compared with Singapore’s ratio of 1.5 percent, and Hong Kong’s and Taiwan’s 2.3 percent.
Unlike the old days, today we have the internet, computers and Google. We can find any information by Google.
I just Google “How many civil servant per capita has Malaysia?” This is the answer “Malaysia has 1.7 million civil servants for our population of 36.5 million. This works out to one civil servant for every 20 citizens. Malaysia has the most civil servants per capita in the world. Almost all the civil servants are ethnic Malays”.
I Google the same questions for Singapore, Taiwan and South Korea. The followings are the answers”
- Singapore has 1 civil servant for 66.8 people.
- Taiwan has 1 civil servant for 65 people.
- South Korea has 1 civil servant for 45 people.
Why do we have so many more civil servants per capita than Singapore, Taiwan and South Korea?
Are our civil servants lazy and slow in doing work?
In fact, 1 computer can work faster than 10 people.
The total cost to maintain 1.7 million civil servants is Rm 41 billion per year. On the top of this, the Government has to make provision for their pension when they retire. The chart below shows Government pension costs:
The Government should reduce management cost by reducing the number of civil servants.
Unlike the old days, today we have internet and computers. We can send an email which will reach the recipient in a few seconds. In the old days, we have to type our letters on papers, put them in envelopes, paste stamps to post them in the post offices. As a result, our Government can easily reduce the number of clerks and typists. In fact, 1 computer can replace many staff.
Another good example is the use of the ATM machines. In the old days, if you want to take out money, you have to write out a cheque or if you want to deposit money, you have to fill up money deposit forms and travel all the way to your bank for the bank clerks to process the transaction.
In fact, you can send money or receive money by your computer or hand phone without leaving your office or your house. Currently all workers’ wages and salaries are paid directly into their bank accounts. As a result, the number. of staff can be reduced to reduce cost.
Civil Service reform.
As I said earlier, the cost of management is very important. The Government must keep management cost as low as practically possible to produce higher profit or benefit for the people and the tax payers.
Government should increase the number of non-Malays to create a competitive spirit and improve management efficiency.
Employment and promotion of civil servants should be based on qualification and not based on race or religion.
Currently Malaysian public debt now stands at RM 1.45 trillion, 81 percent of GDP. This debt blew out during the pandemic, and must be reeled in. Debt reduction requires government savings through improving efficiency within the civil service, developing a broader and more diverse tax base, and eliminating spending leakages.
In 1970 our GDP per capita was about the same as Singapore, Taiwan and South Korea. Currently the GDP per capita of Singapore is 3.5 times, Taiwan is 3 times and South Korea is 2.5 times ours respectively.
All these 3 countries do not even have timber to build their houses, but they are classified as Developed Nations.
Not so long ago, Malaysia was the largest producer of tin, rubber and palm oil. Moreover we are the 16th biggest oil and gas producer in the world. Yet, we could not be classified as a Developed Nation.
Source : Koon Yew Yin
World Bank Report on Malaysia’s civil service, 2019
A World Bank report in 2019 highlighted the fact that the performance of Malaysia’s civil service had been declining since 2014:
“If you look at the indicator for government effectiveness, Malaysia is still above in the region but in 2018, the performance is below that of between 1991 and 2014… If you take the average of that period between 1991 and 2014, it was higher than that in 2018, which means the performance is declining.”
There were also some indicators in which Malaysia ranked even below regionally, including accountability, impartiality, and the openness of its public sector.
“There is a strong perception… that recruitment of the civil service is not fair and neutral (with) Malaysia scoring very poorly on the indicators for impartiality in the government… It’s the lowest ranked, even below the region and way below the OECD,” the report said.
We have a bloated civil service
Malaysia’s bureaucracy is one of the biggest in the world, with 1.7 million civil servants to a population of 32 million, a ratio of 4.5% compared with Singapore’s ratio of 1.5% civil servants to total population, Hong Kong’s 2.3% and Taiwan’s ratio of 2.3%. We are spending more than RM41 billion a year to upkeep our civil servants.
While it is the growing trend of many countries to reduce their civil service, Malaysia’s Prime Minister’s Department, in particular, has done the opposite. It more than doubled its number of civil servants from 21,000 to 43,554 in 2019. In stark contrast, the White House employs fewer than 2,000 staff.
To date, there are so many “ministers in the Prime Minister’s Department” alone, on top of other important agencies or governmental bodies that fall within the purview of the Prime Minister’s Department. The Pakatan Harapan government in 2018 even invented a new post, “special advisers to ministers”, for their unemployed politicians.
The oversized bureaucracy has, in turn, created massive leakage in the economy. In 2010, Cuepacs president Omar Osman revealed that a total of 418,200 or 41% of the total number of civil servants in the country were suspected of being involved in corruption. The 2009 Global Corruption Barometer report revealed that Malaysians generally consider political parties and the civil service to be the most corrupt groups, and the government’s anti-corruption drive to be ineffective.
The public sector is not fair, neutral or impartial.
Source : Malaysia Now
Can the civil service be downsized?
MALAYSIA needs to trim the civil service by one million employees to 600,000 to reach South Korea’s 1:50 civil service-to-population ratio. That’s impossible unless the 640,000 teachers, doctors and nurses in the country are not counted as civil servants, data from the Ministry of Education (MoE) and Ministry of Health (MoH) show.
The RM55 billion required to remunerate the 834,109 civil servants at the MoE and MoH alone accounts for 67% of the country’s RM82.045 billion emolument bill for 2019, expenditure details from the Ministry of Finance show.
Immigration officials, the police and the army — who fall under the Home Ministry — account for 300,000 civil servants and a RM15 billion salary allocation. Together with teachers and medical personnel, these frontline service personnel make up about one million civil servants, nearly two-thirds of Malaysia’s 1.6 million-strong civil service. Most of them have key roles but technology advancement means that these employees will need to be retrained for new roles.
It remains to be seen if prisons and correctional facilities — where there are 23,462 civil servants who will be paid more than RM1 billion this year — can be privatised or corporatised into a real estate investment trust (REIT), something that has been done overseas.
It will be hard to reduce the civil service to one million people — the size when Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad ended his first tenure as prime minister in 2003 — which would improve the civil service-to-population ratio to 1:32 from the current 1:20, which is reportedly among the highest in the world. The ratio is reportedly 1:71 for Singapore and 1:11 for Indonesia.
A more likely working figure for Malaysia in the medium term is perhaps 1.3 million, a 300,000 reduction that would bring the ratio back to the 1:25 reported in 2003 when the country’s population was 25 million. Today, the population stands at 32.58 million (including 3.2 million non-Malaysians).
The government has said it will not expand the civil service and is considering privatisation to reduce the civil service emoluments bill. It cannot allow the civil service emoluments and pension bill to increase at previous rates. If government revenue can somehow rise more than 10% a year, the government could well be able to continue paying the emoluments and pension bill, simple projections based on earlier 10-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) assumptions show. Yet, the government may still be in a deficit situation with limited fiscal muscle if its other expenses rise faster. The current 10-year CAGR for revenue is less than half of what is required, at only 3.87% per annum.
50% income on 7.5% population
In 2003, the civil service wage bill was RM21.72 billion, 23.4% of government revenue. It ballooned in the past decade from 27% of government revenue in 2009 to 35.4% of normalised government receipts this year. The absolute amount doubled in the past decade from RM42.8 billion in 2009 to RM82.04 billion this year, which is larger than the entire company income tax receipt of RM70.2 billion.
Altogether, including pensions and gratuities, 47% of government revenue has been spent this year. In other words, nearly half of government revenue has already been spent on part of public service delivery and just 7.5% of the country’s population, given that there are 1.6 million civil servants and 834,000 pensioners and beneficiaries in 2019.
Emoluments and pensions and gratuities were just under 30% of government revenue in 2003.
Pensions and gratuities payment to civil servants and their dependants, which was already rising as baby boomers retired, spiked 22.7% year on year to RM18.2 billion in 2014, just after the government instituted an automatic 2% annual pension hike in 2013 without needing to wait for any salary review.
Source : The Edge
The Coverage Malaysia
