Tan Sri Hamdan Sirat
A Seasoned Octagenarian

Tan Sri Datuk Amar Haji Hamdan Sirat is a man of strong principles and a strict disciplinarian. His long years in the Special Branch of the Police Force has made this man of 81 a character all of his own and worthy of note by the younger generation of today.

Twelve years ago in 1989, Tan Sri Hamdan succeeded Datuk Wan Hashim as Chairman of the State Public Service Commission (PSC). He looked back at the PSC he inherited and speaks his mind on how things have changed since then for the better.

The Police Commissioner … the first Sarawakian to be appointed as the Sarawak Commissioner of Police. This picture was taken on 1st July 1971

Datuk Wan Hashim was due to retire in 1989 as Chairman of the State Public Service Commission and the government was looking for someone to succeed him. Since he was not doing anything much at the time, Tan Sri Hamdan gladly accepted the appointment.

“Of course, as the new man at the helm of the PSC I felt that the work processes then needed to be revamped and I was trying to find ways and means to bring the PSC into the modern stream of technology.”

Having retired as the Commissioner of Police in 1978, he was appointed as a member of the Police Service Commission for 3 years. Whilst there, he was appointed as the Pemangku Tuan Yang Terutama Yang Di-Pertua Negeri Sarawak for 1 month while the Tuan Yang Terutama (TYT) at the time, Tun Datuk Patinggi Haji Abdul Rahman Yakub was away from office. He was again appointed to the same post for another month a short while later in 1982. While admitting that his stint twice as the Pemangku TYT was less eventful except conducting an investiture ceremony on behalf of the TYT, nonetheless not many people can lay claim that they have been appointed twice as the Pemangku TYT of the State of Sarawak!

Tan Sri Hamdan was again recommended by the State Government to be a member of the Police Service Commission for a second term. He was willing to serve but due to his senior protocol status, the Commission had to look for someone else instead. He was also appointed as one of the Directors of Bank Utama (Malaysia) Bhd and later resigned on his own accord.

“It was when I was out of work after a string of appointments in various capacities that I was appointed and I accepted the appointment as Chairman of the State Public Service Commission on 15 Dec 1989 until the present.” Under the State Constitution, the duty of the Commission is to appoint, confirm, emplace on permanent or pensionable establishment, promote, transfer and exercise disciplinary control over members of the public service.

A member of the PSC is appointed by the TYT, Yang Di-Pertua Negeri on recommendation by the Chief Minister of Sarawak, the period of service one has to serve is at the pleasure of the Government.

Farewell… Tuan Hamdan Sirat bidding farewell to the last Governor of Colonial Sarawak, Sir Anthony Abell at a dinner hosted by the Malay community at the late Tun Abang Haji Openg’s residence, Kpg. Maderasah No. 2 Kuching in August 1963

It has been twelve years since then but he revealed that he really didn’t feel it. “It could be because I immersed myself in my work at the PSC and even though I am into my eighties I will still go on for as long as my services is still required by the government.”

But Tan Sri seems to be a man full of energy and drive when someone his age will call it a day especially after such a long service to the nation. How does he account for his tenacity and staying power? What’s his formula?

“There is no secret. It’s a case of keeping my mind active and always finding ways to improve the services of the PSC. Let me take you back to when I took over as Chairman of the Commission in 1989. At the time, the PSC had only 6 members as compared to 11 today. We were still using the old General Orders and PSC Rule 1964 which have been inherited from the colonial administration. Everything was done rather slowly. Advertisements and recruitment for jobs took between 6 months to 1 year to prepare and complete. When I came in, the first thing I requested from the government was modern office equipment to hasten work processes. They provided me with computers but unfortunately we do not have many people who can operate computers at the time.”

But the PSC has been able to reduce the period of appointment from that long down to 2 - 3 months. Advertisements and interviews can now be done within 2 months, which again depend upon the number of candidates applying and called for interviews. Processing of applications takes some time.

Tan Sri Hamdan shared with us what he meant by improvement in the PSC. “For example, the other day we had about 60 vacancies for SPM school leavers and the number of applicants who responded came to about 6000. One can imagine the effort taken by the PSC staff to feed in all these applications into the system!”

At the Dewan Undangan Negeri in 1984... with YAB Chief Minister of Sarawak Datuk Patinggi Tan Sri (Dr) Haji Abdul Taib Mahmud

Tan Sri Hamdan quickly added that past experiences in dealing with job applications have made the PSC wiser. “We put up our criteria for interview before we key in the applications into the system. My handicap now is that the system cannot provide me with a method where we can key in the criteria we are looking for in the candidate, press a button and the criteria matched that of the candidate for the job.”

The PSC have not yet been able to come up with such a system. “Sometimes work still have to be done manually and when no sufficient staff are available to key in the information due to transfers, promotion, etc. we will face a vacuum in that particular section and that would be a temporary setback.”

However, Tan Sri Hamdan always looks on the bright side of things. “On the whole, we benchmark our process for 2 months - from putting up advertisements in the local dailies to selection of the successful candidates. The 1st week will be taken up by processing all applications received. And the 2nd week will be used up to issue notice for interview, and the 3rd to 4th week will be taken up for interviewing and selection of candidates. The rest will be used for confirming with the State Secretary’s office for issuance of letters of offer to the successful candidates. In this way, we are able to shorten the period of appointment considerably as compared to the past when I first started with the PSC in 1989.”

Tan Sri Hamdan remarked about the system used for selection of candidates in the Federal PSC. “There, you can apply one application for a number of posts. They only advertised once in every 4 months. That application can be used for the whole year. By matching the applicants’ qualification with the criteria keyed into their computers, they only have to find a match and a letter of interview will be issued out to the applicants.”

Welcome… At the airport to welcome the Tunku Abdul Rahman Putra Al-Haj, the first Prime Minister of Malaysia in late 1969

But why can’t the same method be introduced here in Sarawak? “There’s a reason for that. It is simply because the number of job applicants in Sarawak is not as many as in Semenanjung Malaysia. A post for an engineer will attract only about 13 - 14 applicants, which is manageable compared to three or four times that number in Semenanjung.”

What can you say about your team of Board members of the PSC? “I have an excellent mixture of members in my team at the PSC. There are educationists, a former Resident, a former Director of Agriculture, a former Permanent Secretary to a Ministry and a Ketua Masyarakat, which is a good and wholesome blend of personalities with about 200 years combined experience in administration between them. Most of them are graduates and experienced retired heads of department at the Ministry or Resident levels. I tap their talent for the benefit of the organisation. They know their job well and the PSC is a think-tank institution whose power and standing can be reckoned with.”

Having been in the Royal Malaysia Police for thirty-three years, nine of which he spent as the Commissioner, Tan Sri Hamdan would much prefer to talk about his current role in the PSC rather than dwell much into his past services in the Force.

“Some issues are quite sensitive to talk about but suffice for me to say that during my tenure as the Sarawak Commissioner of Police especially during the state of emergency, I had been able with my special experience to subscribe positively to the Government and Security Forces’ efforts and especially psychological operations that had largely demoralised the Clandestine Communist Organisation members as a result of which the Government managed to persuade their leaders to come out from their jungle hideouts and talked terms about their surrender, laying down their arms, abandoning their ideological struggle and returning to society with the Government which eventually led to the signing of Sri Aman Peace Agreement in Simanggang Division, now called Sri Aman Division. What is most important and significant in my mind at the time is that peace and tranquillity had been restored and that I was present to witness the Peace Agreement signed by the Government.”

Undoubtedly, Tan Sri Hamdan has gone through a lot of experiences which he find enriching and though some of them he prefers to keep to himself, there must be some that he can share with us. For instance his greatest achievement.

“The greatest achieve-ment which I felt that I have made is when I was appointed as the Commissioner of Sarawak Police.

Frankly, I did not expect to rise to such a high position in the Service. Never did I dream that one day I would become the head of Police Force in Sarawak. Never. But thanks to Allah, being the first Sarawakian to become one, I felt really proud and satisfied at what I have achieved.”

Welcome… Lining up to welcome Tun Abdul Razak, the second Prime Minister of Malaysia’s visit to Kuching in July 1970

Career-wise, every policeman would want to become a leader of the force one day but for Tan Sri Hamdan to have reached that high a position was a dream come true. “During the colonial days it was not easy to be promoted to an Assistant Superintendent of Police because my education was only up to Overseas Junior Cambridge. Some were lucky to be sponsored by the Colombo Plan Scholarship. The furthest some teachers got to under the Rajahs time was to Tanjung Malim in Perak.”

“I went into the police force merely to get myself a job and after a short spell of attachment in general duties, CID and prosecution work, I went in straight into the Special Branch of the Police Force. Things changed with time and when Malaysia was formed, the political situation was in turmoil with the subversive elements threatening the peace and stability of the country. But my training all those years in the Special Branch helped me a lot in gathering intelligence work and made me a very disciplined person of today.”

Tan Sri is now 81 year of age but throughout the conversation we had, he exuded confidence and an aura of military-like statesmanship. His memory of things past sounds as fresh as if they only happened the day before.

“I am 81 years old and that’s another achievement. When you reach my age, you learn to appreciate and value health. If you’ve got health you’ve got wealth. I exercise a lot. When I was a young lad, I had to walk to school just like most other friends and school children at the time. The few lucky ones could afford to be chaperoned to school by their parents but I walked from my home at Jalan Haji Mataim in Kuching to my school, St. Joseph which is about 3 miles away. But the we had morning and afternoon sessions. All in all I walked about 12 miles a day.”

“Only 6 years later did my father afford me a second-hand Japanese-made bicycle. The basic physical training is already there, so when I entered the police force, naturally I took to all the rigorous training like ‘duck to water.’ I was sent to Bau as the OCPD. I walked a lot up and down the hills and you get used to it, walking from Bau to Sematan in the jungle. That’s our training.”

Despite Tan Sri’s appearance of good health and sturdy physical form, he confessed that he also has his fair share of health problems but does some exercises several times a week to keep in shape. “Walking comes naturally to me. When I retired from the Service, of course I cannot really keep up with what I did then due to my age, but at least I go for brisk walks about 4 times a week for 30-40 minutes, do some free-hand exercises, supplementing my diet with vitamins which is essential for everybody. I have health problems of course, but they are manageable and I look forward to live longer.”

Sports and relaxation... Tan Sri Hamdan upholds the virtue of sports in high esteem

Tan Sri Hamdan also shared with us his views on the modern Sarawak Civil Service. “The Civil Service is intensively upgrading their human resource academic status. Increasing number of officers is opting for post graduate studies conducted jointly by the Human Resource Development Unit of the Chief Minister’s Department and the Centre for Modern Management (CMM) in partnership with recognised foreign academic institutions. This can only augur well for the future of Sarawak in Malaysia as it move towards becoming an industrialised nation come the year 2020.”

During the last few years the Sarawak Civil Service have trained its lower ranks workforce by introducing a course known popularly as COSEC or Core Skills for Effectiveness and Change. Lately that has been changed to SSDP or Support Staff Development Programme with its various Quality and Productivity modules.

“At the PSC, we keep tab of officers who are due for promotion and at the interview stage we will ask them about what they have picked up from attending the SSDP. If they had diligently attended the course, they would be able to discuss with us at the Commission how the course they attended could be used to benefit themselves and their department. They would be able to talk about effective communications skill and problem-solving situation, etc. Problems can be detected at their source and this is very important and useful for everybody who work as a team in the Civil Service. The Civil Service is doing a tremendously good job in training its officers. They are moving in the right direction.”

Tan Sri Hamdan cautioned that the Civil Service training to upgrade knowledge and skills of their staff is a noble and excellent effort. “But academic achievement alone is not all that matters in the Civil Service. Coupled with knowledge and skills of officers is discipline. To be disciplined is to know the General Orders and other Rules and Regulations which are in force. Failure to observe and practise the General Orders would render an officer to compromise his or her professional status of an elite Civil Service.”