TheStar reports that civil servants want up to a 40% salary increase.
Cuepacs president Omar Osman said the one million civil servants were seeking the raise not only because the cost of living had gone up but also because their work performance had improved.
To answer Uncle Kit’s call… first off I have to agree that some government jobs are paying too low, example teachers and policemen. The low pay is one of the main reasons that these sectors failed to attract good qualities of intake for the past couple of decades.
Lots of my course-mates that are around 27-28 years of age are making higher income than teachers at the age of retirement, and that’s pretty pathetic. Nowadays it sure takes lots of ambitions for a person to be a teacher other than those that have not too many options.
I also think that some labor force like the garbage cleaners deserved a bit more; I am not sure about their pay but I got the feeling that it’s pretty low… anything below RM1,000 these days are not sufficient to support a family.
However I am not very please with the Cuepacs’ claims that their work performance had improved, at least not all of them. Mr. Omar gave a good example of passport being issued within hours, kudos to the immigration workers… but other than that I can’t think of any other significant improvement from government sectors in recent years.
Also the efficiency in some sections like the issuing of passports is largely credited to the advancement of technology; the irony thing is that with the use of technology we shouldn’t need that many staffs to handle things in our government sectors.
Another note I think of is that government is taking in too many staffs each year, and many of them are not at the highest quality, and the question is “do we need so many civil servants?”
Yes there are group of civil servants that deserve 40% pay rise, but there are certainly a large group of the others that never deserved it.
A personal experience is when I visited the Registrar of Companies (ROC) a couple years back… their attitude and efficiency was a total embarrassment for Malaysia government agencies, I certainly hope that they have improved a lot in these 2 years; else they don’t deserve any pay rise because of the ‘improved performance’ as claimed.
One advice for Cuepacs is to know what they are fighting for; they should know that 40% rise is close to impossible, government will go broke in instant if they grant the demand. Making ridiculous demand at the leadership level is childish; the Cuepacs leaders should have more reasonable facts and demand to make any request a reality.
December 11th, 2006 at 8:30 pm
Yes, they do deserve it…if the quality of life for the general public has increased by 40 percent…including their salaries. This is not too much to ask as the civil servants are there to ensure the smooth running of society and overall progress and prosperity. Of course, if the servants don’t do a good job to ensure this, then there is really no reason for them to earn a single percent more is there. If they do, then there can be no other reason for this than the transition of civil servants to civil masters.
December 12th, 2006 at 11:59 am
i tottaly agree .. what work performance are they talking???
December 12th, 2006 at 2:55 pm
One big problem with civil servants is the imbalance of quality. As said there are good and bad among them but all of them will be getting similar pay regardless.
Perhaps the government should consider firing some poor performing staffs and keep those that are performing well, and it’s justifiable to give pay rise to the remaining civil servants.
Government sector could operate in a more competitive environment like private sector. Cut cost, increase productivity… then we will talk about pay rise and bonus.
December 14th, 2006 at 7:43 am
It will lead to complications and have a knock-on effect on the economy. Don’t civil servants get enough under-table money?
December 14th, 2006 at 9:57 am
precisely Jee, fire the unproductive ones .. COMPETITIVE is the word.
December 14th, 2006 at 11:28 am
Gallivanter… I guess not all civil servants got coffee money.
December 15th, 2006 at 3:38 pm
After the recent hooha about the differing NEP mis-statistics it is unimaginable that any gov or quasi govt body can make any intelligent calculations at any level .
So now this ! Why 40 %, why not 200 % ? prove it ( what a joke )
December 15th, 2006 at 6:47 pm
A friend of mine that’s connected with Cuepacs share something that enlighten me.
Apparently Cuepac is asking UP TO 40% especially for the lower income civil servants… which I totally agree.
As said in my post I do felt that workers like garbage cleaners etc. deserved a bit more as they are doing jobs that not many people are willing to do, and their pay is perhaps too low to support a decent family.
It just show that Cuepac representative is pretty poor in sending out messages; they could be asking just 15% pay rise in average, but they share their intentions poorly instead.
February 27th, 2007 at 4:33 pm
The civil servant shall follow the working style and system in private sector where the person who perform well will get the reward / increment and otherwise.
I am totally not agree of the increment of 40% because the private sector only given 10-20% !
The ‘boss” of the civil servant shall consider the issue thoroughly before making any decision because this involved public money, our money !
February 27th, 2007 at 11:02 pm
kc wong… you are probably using a wrong example. Private sectors get increment almost every year, while government servants’ increment are much lower than private sector on average.
For me it’s the performance of the civil servants that concerned me. If they are doing a good job, fair enough for a huge increment… but as what most of us here mentioned, the overall quality of civil services are still below par.
March 20th, 2007 at 3:58 pm
the reason for the performance of the civil servants have not improved much is because they have to work extra time after office hours as taxi drivers, security guards, salesman and etc just to support their family. The salary they got from government are not enought even to pay for their basic needs. In term of productivity, yes they work extra loads. Imaging living in KL with basic salary of around RM 400 from the current payroll. could you survive..Pls my friends….
March 20th, 2007 at 6:12 pm
Jaycee… afamily income of less than RM1000 is quite unbearable in KL, I agree… and I did mention that jobs like that (such as cleaners, garbage collectors etc) would need some pay rise.
Doing part time is not a good reason for poor performance on the job though. In fact if they are working on 2 jobs, they need to perform well on both jobs.
Btw, there are people that are paid lower but have to work harder in private sector… that’s really no basis to say that the government servants should be tolerated for poor services because of low pay.
March 31st, 2007 at 12:19 pm
Every civil servant is waiting hopefully for payrise news on 1 may 2007. 10% rise is yes but 40% I doubt it. I ve been in government service for 33 years and I can feel that the JPA will only come to an answer 10% - 15% payrise.
March 31st, 2007 at 4:03 pm
10% rise seems fair enough… some probably deserve a bit more, some perhaps don’t deserve it at all.