A
Conference on the "Public Service of the Future"
The
state Public Service is in the process of revamping its machinery to transform
itself to lead in the new millennium. A conference on the "Public Service
of the Future: Transforming The Public Service To Load Into The Future"
will be organised on the 21st and 22nd September 1999 in Kuching. Y.Bhg. Datuk
Haji Abdul Aziz Husain, the Deputy State Secretary for Human Resource spoke
about the Conference at a Press Briefing on 21 June 1999. Below is an excerpt
of his briefing.
"This conference was initiated
by the Chief Minister's vision to transform the state Civil Service into something
which can meet the future needs or the demands of the people of Sarawak. For
example, when we talk about Vision 2020, there is no way that this Vision of
a developed society can be met, a nation where its people are not only learning
continuously to achieve a Gross Domestic Product of more than US$50,000 per
capita, but at the same time, maintaining the right values i.e. the eastern
values in the eye of the so-called "Civil Society" or "Masyarakat Madani".
This cannot be achieved
if the Civil Service does not help in the transformation of the society. And
to transform society, the Civil Service itself needs to be transformed. If we
just want the Civil Service to play its current role, then there is no need
to transform the Civil Service. Without the transfomation of the Civil Service,
Vision 2020 will not be achieved.
It is important to transform
the Civil Service. We've done a lot of things and one of them is Human Resource
Development. One of the things that we can do is to have a seminar such as this
one coming up in september, where we can talk about the challenges of the future
and what the Civil Service needs to do to meet future challenges and to transform
itself to meet the requirements of Vision 2020. As we know, the world is changing
due to globalisation and because of these changes, the world is also changing
our society which in itself, has changed a lot of things in Sarawak. As a result
of these changes, we will have to play a more complex role as we transform ourselves
to meets future needs.
The traditional role of
the Civil Service remains the same. This does not mean that the Civil Service
will have a completely different role. Its traditional role of providing administrative
services will still be retained because there is no other machinery to replace
the CS role of providing the most efficient administrative services than the
government. There is no way that this role can be transferred to private sector.
We want to deliver government services better and maybe adopt some commercial
methods or processes in our way or delivering a better and more efficient administrative
services. The new role expected of the Civil Service is that they are expected
to focus on development beside the administration of the state.
The Civil Service is therefore
playing the role of catalyst for economics growth - to provide opportunity and
facilitate conditions that will be valuable to this group. Here, we'd like to
see more partnership and co-operation between the private and public sector.
This is the new role or the new way of doing things. We'll be doing things together
as partners with the private sector in order to improve efficiency and make
things better. We are not only looking to have partnership with the private
sector, but also with the community, the people who are our customers and to
serve them better. Therefore, there is going to be a close liaison within this
triangle of government, private sector and the community.
The public service will
then become a dynamic force which can effectively handle the challenges and
present the opportunities for the betterment of the state, the people and the
country. One of the things to do is to look at the tools we have, for example,
computer in IT in order for us to do our jobs effectively.
In summary, the new role
of the Sarawak Civil Service will be different from what we are doing now although
we still retain the traditional responsibility as the provider of essential
government services in adminstering the state. We are also looking at an enhanced
role of the public service as a driving force for economic and social change
for the development of the country."
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