Updating Dr M on who runs the country
Written by Dr Lim Teck Ghee, CPI
Is it true that Umno has allowed the situation of Malay dominance to be so badly eroded that the community is facing a bleak and hopeless future?
The Ketuanan party is being overly modest if it refuses to take any credit for the Malays’ measurable success. In which case, we should all be content to attribute the advancement of Malays and Malaysia merely to takdir and the grace of Allah, and quite willing to discount human agency and Umno diligence.
But let’s see.
Bring back the civil service staff list
Until the early 1970s, the Malaysian government used to produce a federal civil service staff list annually that contained the details of key personnel heading the various ministries and departments of the federal authorities and agencies, and their positions in the service.
In most if not all states, there was also a similar staff list of officers serving in key management and administrative positions at the state and local levels.
This staff list served a number of purposes. It enabled the public and the people running the government at the highest level to keep track of which officer was in command of which agency as well as to get an overview of the total structure of government and its key personnel. It also enabled officials in service to keep in touch with their fellow officers, and to track each other’s career movement over time.
The staff list was a published document available at a small price to anyone. Although it was a practice that came to the country as a result of British colonial administration, it can be considered to be a good practice as it helped put names and details on an otherwise faceless, anonymous and often unaccountable bureaucracy, especially at its higher reaches.
That practice of a published and publicly accessible consolidated staff list was abandoned possibly because of the growth in the civil service and the increase in the number of senior positions which would make the publication a bulky one.
There may have been other reasons – possibly political. Perhaps the civil service leaders of that time and era such as Ramon Navaratnam can help explain the real reason.
With e-everything now …
Whatever the reason for discontinuing with the practice, the age of the Internet now provides the Malaysian government an opportunity to respond to calls for transparency and accountability of the civil service by producing an electronic list of its key personnel.
This e-list can be done cheaply, quickly and painlessly through an integration of the existing staff lists of all government agencies and ministries, and even extending to the GLCs and GLICs.
Such a measure is especially important to undertake because there has recently been concerns raised by the vocal former prime minister that Malays are being marginalized, and that the Chinese (and now, foreign immigrants) are taking over the country.
These concerns, echoed by Perkasa, and some of the mainstream Malay media, have confused many Malaysians, especially Malays, on what is the true situation today.
Besides responding to the communal hysteria being whipped up by Dr Mahathir Mohamad and his supporters, the electronic senior staff list is useful in the pursuit of greater transparency and accountability in the civil service – a sector that is paid for by all taxpayers.
Moreover, disclosure of who are the key personnel in the local, state and federal levels of the civil service will provide us with a factual basis for gauging the truth or otherwise of the public statements on the so-called Malay loss of power – an allegation that is gaining momentum as the next general elections draws nearer.
It is Dr Mahathir who gives the ballpark figure that “30 percent” power is what Malays will be reduced to holding if they are disunited.
He injects more venom into the throbbing vein of Malay insecurity with his acid-laced claim that they will lose out on the good jobs. Adopting a physician’s bedside manner, he says in the most syrupy of tones: “Tak apa lah. Buruk sangatkah menjadi buruh kasar dan pemandu kereta?” (Never mind lah. Is it all that bad to be a hard labourer and driver?)
Dr Mahathir’s chip on the shoulder the size of a Pontiac Catalina was already visible in the late 1950s when, with apparent deliberation, he chose to hire a Chinese man to drive him around Alor Setar in his gas-guzzling car.
Fifty years down the road, the country must once more exorcise his May 13 phantoms lest he derails Malaysia and sends us crashing again.
So let’s look at some empirical data of who is in control.
