CIVIL SERVICE
DAY' 98 A Greater Sense Of Purpose for the SARAWAK CIVIL SERVICE
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| * Speech delivered by YAB
Datuk Patinggi Tan Sri (Dr) Hj. Abdul Taib Mahmud during the Civil Service
Day Dinner and Awards Presentation. |
During the Civil Service Day Dinner
and Awards Presentation Ceremony, YAB Datuk Patinggi Tan Sri (Dr) Haji Abdul
Taib Mahmud, honoured the Sarawak Civil Service by sharing his vision and outlook
for Sarawak's urban and rural development and the role which the State Civil
Service must play to ensure its success. In concluding his speech, the Chief
Minister exhorted all civil servants to find a "greater sense of purpose
in the shared outlook I put forward to you. I do believe that this will be of
great value and will enable you to serve with a greater sense of purpose and
find more meaning and fulfilment in your roles in the Civil Service."
" As we are now 35 years old
within Malaysia, can we say that we have already adapted ourselves successfully
or otherwise?
Having observed the development within
the Civil Service, we are now in a position to say that the Civil Service has
revolutionised itself to become the New Civil Service which involves the change
from a style of administration characterised by top-down administration to an
administration which reflects the people's wishes.
This is due to our success in taking
over the leadership position in the Civil Service from the expatriates. At least,
Sarawakians would have that feeling of love and affection for their country
and nation and would realise that the government of the people would be able
to bring development to the nation. This would unlikely be the case if the situation
is reversed. Sarawakians themselves would naturally be imbued with a sense of
commitment towards the success of our own efforts. Such a scenario is now clear
and unquestionable.
Secondly, there has been a visible
change or transformation from a status-quo administration to development administration.
In other words, there has been a change from an authoritative administration
to that of being able to maintain the peace and security of our nation where
the government continues to enjoy the respect of the rakyat through a fair and
just system of administration regardless of race, religion and culture.
Having said that, the other big task
is how efficiently can we move or adapt ourselves to this change from status
quo administration to development administration. This process is not new -
in fact it has started about 40 years ago.
Development is not only confined
to construction of buildings and infrastructures. It also implies the development
of the rakyat in stepping up their efforts in performing their duties to enhance
higher productivity, hence improving their income and living standard.
Besides developing the infrastructures,
we must also pool together the people's energy with that of the government's
and the private sectors'. This is a long and sophisticated struggle which changes
over time because our objectives and missions change with the time. Once we
succeed, it is not the time to rest on our laurels but instead work harder to
achieve even more success. Our vision will become wider and hence, our objectives
will become even more ambitious.
This is the challenge to the civil
servants and the nation - from politicians to the private sector, community
leaders and on to the younger generation which will inherit a more sophisticated
and progressive society.
To ensure the success of the civil
Service' process of transformation demands a shared vision and the participation
of each one of us so that we have a sense of comradeship in the struggle towards
development administration. Without this common vision, we may end up with a
lot of wasted efforts. It is one thing to understand directives but carrying
out those directives successfully is another.
This brings to my mind an incident
in the past which involves a District Officer who received a memo marked 'CONFIDENTIAL'
directing him to meet the Chief Minister who will be arriving in Bintulu at
a certain time and date. When the Chief Minster's party arrived, there was no
sign of a welcoming party at the wharf. The DO and his officer explained that
the memo was marked "CONFIDENTIAL' and so he did not tell anymore else apart
from one of his officers. So the Chief Minsiter's party had to retreat to the
boat and anchor away until the DO had enough time to organise a welcoming party.
Another incident comes to mind: an
agricultural staff was directed to collect soil samples from the Asajaya (formerly
Nonok) for the purpose of soil analysis to develop the agricultural potential
of the area. I know that there is vast potential for agricultural development
in the area from my own surveillance and knowledge of Asajaya. So, when the
Cabinet asked for the soil sample report, the result was negative - the soil
sample was poor and not good for agriculture. I told the Cabinet that there
must be some mistake. This is contrary to what I saw myself when I travelled
there - there were plenty of coconut and cocoa trees being grown there. The
soil sample could have been extracted from another area, perhaps from Pending
or Pangkalan Batu in Kuching!
We cannot blame the agricultural
worker. He is just 'obediently' serving the government. So, people can serve
but, is the service productive? It does not attain the result we require. Why
is this so? The answer is simple. People are being asked to do things and they
cannot or do not think beyond what is asked of them!
Understand the political development
If you want to have a very good Civil
Service, the civil servants must understand the political development in the
country. Never mind what the political parties are saying - what is important
is what does the rakyat want.
Sometimes, what the rakyat wants
is reflected in the resolution of the various parties. The leaders of the parties
must be inspired by the people and they must make sure that what is desired
by the people becomes the programme of the government. The people' wishes and
desires must be put in a form tangible and translatable as the policies of the
government. The moment it reaches the level of policy decision, it is binding
on everyone.
But you may not be able to understand
why a certain policy is made unless you keep up-to-date with what is happening
in your own country. After reading the resolution of the various political parties,
then you will know what the rakyat wants. The rakyat will expect us to roll
up our sleeves and do something about it.
The other thing about the Civil Service
is the civil servants as administrators are required to put into practice the
knowledge gained from their exposure to training and attending courses from
time to time - how things can best be carried out to make policy decisions practical
and implementable in a spirit that becomes the common inspiration of the people.
That is only half the success story of the Civil Service.
Sarawak is lucky. The present State
Secretary and his immediate predecessor have spared no effort in interpreting
the policies of the government and how it reflects the vision of the people
as a whole. They have tried to make civil servants understand why things are
done the way they should be and they can get tough in pushing things that ought
to be done. They have tried to be flexible at the same time - if things cannot
be solved one way, they have to be done another way until a solution is found.
The Civil Service in Sarawak is committed
to development - they put in a lot of efforts to see that policies are translated
in the most practicable and beneficial way. Unfortunately, this is not enough
- good intentions and dedication are merely not enough. The reality is that
our objectives keep on getting higher and bigger. For instance, the expenditure
during the 1st Malaysia Plan compared to the 7th Malaysia Plan has increased
tremendously. Today, Sarawak is spending as much as Malaysia during the 1st
Malaysia Plan. Of course, purchasing power has changed. But this shows how much
the volume of work has increased.
Information technology (IT)
and productivity
What about the size of the Civil
Service? Since early 70s, numerous agencies and corporations have been created
in order to tackle work which today ought to be done by the private sector in
order to quicken the pace of development. Judging from the ratio of work to
civil servants from one development plan to another, expansion alone is not
enough. Productivity has to be increased. For example, the Land & Surveys
department cannot do all the job required by the government unless they introduce
a restructuring programme in the way they do things. A lot of project was stuck
back in the 70s and early 80s because the number of staff could not be increased
proportionately to the volume of work.
There is one way of tackling this
problem - find the tools to speed up implementation of our work. By this I mean
computerisation. This has hastened the pace of work. It used to take at least
six weeks, if not six months to do land registration, but today the same amount
of work can be done in three days!
The introduction of improved machinery
for administration is necessary but merely acquiring these machines is not enough.
The question is how can we train our people to handle these new tools and implements
in order to raise our productivity. We can also change the pattern of working
such as training the clerks and office boys to do other work. The typewriters
are now almost defunct. Stenographers are already out-of-date. Times are changing
very fast and so must we.
Unless people are willing to embrace
this new fangled thing called IT, they may not be able to keep abreast with
improvements in the Civil Service that is needed to cope with the increasing
volume of work.
I am happy to see that the State
Secretary and his team, such as SAINS, have been able to persuade the Civil
Service to accept information technology (IT) as an everyday part of their lives.
But even this acceptance is not enough compared to what is to come. We have
introduced IT in most departments, at most we now have them at Divisional level.
That is not enough. We have got to get down to the ground at the District level.
How do the DOs perceive this new ways of communicating i.e. video conferencing
as opposed to the old style of communication? Sometimes people feel strange
with new ideas and may not be enthusiastic about it. But we can't escape this.
It is the trend of the times. It will be just like trying to avoid the new sunrise
tomorrow. You may be able to satay in bed until late but the sun will also rise
regardless.
IT is to my mind a means by which
we can gain information much faster and get information more easily to equip
ourselves with answers to all the questions in our mind as to why we must do
things. If it cannot be done in the usual way, isn't it time we consult our
colleagues and benefit from their experience? So networking or consulting colleagues
and trying to share experience is something new but it is something you would
have to do and cannot run away from.
Removing boundaries through
networking and consultation
Development administration is a form
of administration that knows no boundary between departments, between one discipline
and another. It is an effort to transform society as a whole. Transformation
embraces not only economic but also social and cultural transformation. Under
economic, there's agriculture, forestry and industries. All these are intertwined
in making that little push called growth in our economy and these sources must
be aligned in the same direction in order to yield what I would call productive
results. People can be very busy and yet not be doing anything much. Such a
person is one who doesn't know why he wants to do things, in what direction
he's moving and with whom he has got to co-operate.
Development administration sometimes
involve proper sequencing. For example, in projects A, B, C, D & E, some
people cannot proceed with E until D is done and so on down the line. In JKR
they are taught about Critical Path Planning. In some departments, there are
things which are needed to be done first before others can go ahead. So it is
important for those in charge of Job B to be informed of Job C and who is doing
Job C. Is it possible to make a call to C to make sure C has been able to implement
his project?
These are the small things happening
to our society today. We have learnt a major part of it but not all. I know
this because I have seen the performance of the Secretariat for the last
15 years which has got to be changed drastically - systems after systems have
got to be revised. My State Secretary, Datuk Amar Haji Hamid Bugo and his team
is thinking and working real hard to implement these changes in our work systems.
They will have to tell you many things that is new and they will have to initiate
you to new ways of doing things.
Let us take the environment, for
example. A lot of things cannot be done until EIA is done. If the Department
of Environment is slow, everybody else is slow. In the old days, if the Land
& Surveys is slow, everyone else will be slow. Today, not only Land &
Surveys is involved, the Environment has got to be fast, too. Otherwise, construction
projects cannot commence. They are all interconnected. It is therefore important
in the Civil Service that we do our networking or to use a new phrase, we should
forge a Smart Partnership.
Forging smart partnerships
What do I mean by Smart Partnership?
To illustrate, we try to hasten the pace of development. Broadly, from the latest
vision that we have, two fundamental development areas are modernisation of
agriculture especially for the rural areas and smoothening the pace of urbanisation.
Modern agriculture can be implemented well in this country because Malaysia
as a whole has been developing estate plantation for decades but for Sarawak
this is something new. NCR land in the rural areas will have to be converted
into estates. But the problems are many - mainly the problem of new ideas being
turned into negative propaganda by people who are opposed to development, But,
thanks to God, after 10 years, the rakyat is beginning to understand, and politicians
who have the real interest of the rakyat at heart, are beginning to adopt the
NCR programme as the best way to counter poverty in the rural areas. In other
words, the process of trying to put together a 'land bank' which can be tapped
for estate plantation development is going to be much easier than before.
But don't slaken,
everybody must get involved in helping our people to understand the process.
You may not be a native, but the understanding can be spread by you. Sometimes,
if a non-native can tell a native how good the idea is, it will be spread much
faster - the understanding can be rooted more deeply and I believe we can abolish
poverty and bring prosperity in the rural areas. We can turn idle land to productive
use even before the year 2020.
So, the problem
of increasing the understanding of NCR development is not a native's task. It
is everybody's task especially DOs who are in contact with the rural people.
The other problem,
which concerns urbanisation, has started. The number of people coming to all
our towns, be it Lawas or Kuching are increasing to such an extent that by the
year 2000 the urban population in Sarawak will reach one million - from a mere
quarter of a million only two decades ago.
Such an exodus
poses a challenge for the industries to create more jobs; for the housing authorities
to create more houses. It presents a challenge for all people to keep our towns
orderly and clean; for the authorities to plan the orderly movements of traffic
and for the health department to keep the city and towns healthy. And, the latest
challenge is for our sewerage authority. The local government is not equipped
to do this. Projecting 10 years from now, the cost could be estimated at half
a billion ringgit.
That is the challenge.
Meanwhile we have social problems. People wants to practice "self-help", thinking
they can squat wherever they feel like it and build a house wherever they pleased.
If the government were to stop them, we will be made to look like cruel people.
If we allow them to settle anywhere or if we are not strict with squatters,
the day will come when people will be erecting a hut in your lawn as in Sri
Lanka.
If we allow such
things to happen here, what will happen to our rising standard of living and
our quality of life? We work so hard to upgrade our standard of living and these
new forces will only pull it down by erecting slums in our midst. We cannot
have a development which on one hand is fast and trying to achieve high quality
while on the other hand, another group will try to pull it down. We cannot have
an authority working hard to have a clean town only to find another section
of the population turning it into a rubbish dump.
Controlling counter forces of
development
You can't
have development policy unless you are strict on the counter forces that destroy
the standard of development. These include those people who squat upon a land
and get involved in a racket to rent or sell land which do not belong to them.
This is already happening now. We have to control these counter forces or else
our development efforts will come to nothing.
Whose job is it
then to control them? Not the Land & Surveys alone. This must be tackled
from the education point of view, by us, the responsible citizens of Sarawak
by condemning such behavior as antisocial. The last Cabinet reshuffle was done
to focus on urbanisation problems within one telescopic vision so that it can
be tackled together. I have given out directives a long time ago not to remove
the old squatters as opposed to the recent ones, until I can find an alternative
site for resettlement - that is humane policy.
What happened?
The squatters not only refused to move but instead asked to be paid to move
out. Some people pay, especially for commercial development. That will make
the cost of development higher. If I get someone to do a housing development,
it will cost a fortune to pay squatters to move out. How can we have low-cost
housing then? Low-cost housing will only be a dream unless we are very committed
to go all out for it.
What actually
happened is that under the urbanisation programme, as a response to the big
transformation of our towns and cities and through 6 - 9 years of education,
there is a drift into urban areas of people looking for jobs. Because of government
industrial policies, there are jobs. If there are no jobs, people should not
have come into these towns and cities. They will only make life difficult for
themselves. Assuming there are jobs and they are serious in bringing up their
families in the towns and cities, they can be helped with low-cost housing on
two conditions: first, they are serious to own a house and second, we have orderly
development that do not allow all counter forces of development such as squatters,
land grabbers and negative politicians.
I foresee that
within the next 10 years, we can get people from any part of Sarawak to come
to Kuching with relevant job opportunities. We can handle about 20,000 families
complete with jobs and houses provided everything is done in an orderly manner.
Who is going to
ensure things are done in an orderly manner? Not only the Land & Surveys,
Housing Commission, Town Planners, Ministry of Industrial Development, Ministry
of Resource Planning. Everybody will be involved including the Police and those
who understand the process of helping people.
If we can create
an overall outlook and stand by our shared perception of how to help people
by ensuring orderly development, Sarawak can develop fast and I am sure all
civil servants will become the elite group and leader of our society who make
our job of helping people easier.
That is the vision
I would like to share with you. You can react imaginatively once you understand
the overall picture. If you are going to be firm and tough to get things done,
you know you are not cruel. By having orderly development and advising people
in the correct manner, you will be able to help them, not punishing them because
we love our people. I do believe that we can exercise some discretion and determination
to do our job well.
At not time in
the history of Sarawak can we find a stronger team at the Secretariat then the
present team. They are very keen to look for ways and means of improving our
performance and they have shown results too. Let us hope their leadership can
permeate down to the divisional level and later on to the district level so
that the two areas of transformation - modernisation and commercialisation of
agriculture and urbanisation will be carried out very smoothly with our Civil
Service in Sarawak paving a very good path in implementing it. The private sector
have accepted their role - as partners of the government in the shared outlook
I put forward to you will be of great value and will enable you to serve with
a greater sense of purpose and help you find more meaning and fulfilment in
your roles in the Civil Service.
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