THE government may privatise government agencies to reduce the number of civil servants while maintaining jobs, Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad says.

“The size of government can be trimmed without affecting the quality of service. But this reduction does not mean taking jobs away,” he told Parliament today.

He cited the introduction of a privatisation policy in 1983 where the government was able to reduce its operating expenditure, improve efficiency and productivity, and raise economic growth by transferring a portion of the civil service to the private sector.

“This can be seen from the privatisation of Telekom where its staff was transferred to the private sector. The workers also received better remuneration packages,” said Dr Mahathir.

He said the same strategy was still relevant today although it has to ensure better productivity and use of human resources.

“We know we cannot merely take away jobs as it will create social problems. As such, we have to promote manufacturing so more can move from government work to the private sector.”

Dr Mahathir added the size of civil service was only one million when he retired as prime minister in 2003 but now it stands at 1.7 million people.

“As a result of the higher operating expenses, the government today has less money to spend on development expenditure,” he said.

Dr Mahathir (Langkawi-PH) said the previous government had increased the size of civil service by creating unnecessary agencies while paying high wages.

“Jobs done by one, is now performed by three. The previous government paid high wages to obtain support from the civil service elections and even used newly created agencies to hire their party members.

“This government will not do that.”

He was responding to Ismail Mohamed’s (Kuala Krau-BN) question on the government’s plan to reduce the civil service.

Ismail also wanted to know if the government is planning to raise the salaries of civil servants.

“The rise in civil service wages will cause private sector to raise theirs, hence increasing the cost of living,” said Dr Mahathir.

“As such, if there is any increase in government wages, it has to correspond to higher productivity by promoting automation, IT and improving workflow.” – The Malaysian Insight, March 12, 2019.