Civil Servants to Spare?

"Too many Chiefs and not enough Indians" is a saying that meant we have too many people standing around and too few people actually doing some work.

There is another saying, "Too many cooks spoil the broth" which means that there is an optimum number of people needed to perform a series of tasks. If there are too few, workers are heavily loaded and output suffers.
And if you have too many people doing a small job, there is also more inefficiency and output suffers.

This interesting chart show the civil servants ratio to population comparisons and it looks Malaysia is leading for once.

Unfortunately this is not a good thing as it means more of our population is employed by the government and that results in fewer people being engaged in the private sector that generates the wealth of the nation. Of course the tax collectors are always on the government side.

Let's assume that we adopt a policy of benchmarking with Taiwan as that is a fairly advanced country at 2.69%.
If we apply this percentage we should have 713,186 civil servants instead of the 1,142,783 (for 2005)or an excess of 429,597 workers to support.

In other words, for 2005 the civil service was already overstaffed by a whopping 60%!

I am surprised that this recurring expense has not even been debated in Parliament. The recent pay increase for civil servants was overdue and the adjustment for pensioners is good.

I would have changed the rules for pensioners somewhat instead of just the same percentage increases as workers as follows:

Those receiving RM5000 and more per month would only receive an increase between RM80 to RM100.

The latest salary adjustment will cost the government an extra RM8billion each year but if we use the 60% adjustment, the recurrent cost would be only RM4.8billion and the nation could have benefitted from the RM3.2billion saved each year.

Based on your preferences,that extra RM3.2billion each year could have been used as follows:

RM500 million building better schools
RM500 million training skills programs for youths
RM500 million upgrading public transport in major cities
RM500 million improving public health services
RM500 million microcredit projects
RM500 million welfare schemes for the poor and broken families
RM200 million programs to improve communities and inter-racial harmony(not just eating at official open houses)

So maybe the next time you phone a government department and the call is not answered after 4 rings, it could be that there are actually 2 operators and each is waiting for the other to respond.

And perhaps the reason your file takes so long to get approval is that instead of just one officer needing to read your application, they need 2 persons to read and one of them has gone to a seminar up Genting Highlands.

In the past the government has absorbed unemployed graduates but such a measure should only be a temporary one and the person should only be employed on a one-year contract during which time the person has the responsibilty to upgrade his or her skills to suit the job market.
The other solution for the surplus workers in the civil service is to allow older workers to leave earlier and draw the pension.

The world owes no one a living and there are really many jobs available in the plantation and construction industry.

Graphics: Thanks to malaysiakini