FORMER prime minister Najib Razak said there is no problem trimming the civil service if there are jobs that are redundant.

But he urged the government to carry out a proper analysis to define what is a civil servant. 

“More than half of civil servants are teachers and nurses… We have a young population.

“We keep on building additional schools and they require teachers.

“So, it’s not as easy to cut down size of civil service,” he said at Parliament lobby today. 

He said an apple-to-apple comparison needs to be done to define civil servants’ jobs because in Malaysia, the police and military are included in the civil service. 

“If you do a comparison, you need to compare apples to apples. In most countries the police and military aren’t included in the total figure of civil servants.

“But in Malaysia’s case, we include everybody,” he said. 

He said with that analysis, Malaysia’s civil service would not be as bloated as it seems. 

Najib was referring to Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s comments that the civil service is bloated. 

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

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

He cited the introduction of a privatisation policy in 1983, when the government had reduced operating expenditure, improved efficiency and productivity, and raised economic growth by transferring certain government services to the private sector.

When asked if the civil service needs to be pruned, Najib said that it depends on the analysis done by the government. 

“There has to be proper comparison to what is the ideal number of civil servants. It cannot be based on rhetoric. It has to be based on analysis and proper study. It must be compared like-to-like,” he said.

Dr Mahathir had said the government may privatise government agencies to reduce the number of civil servants while maintaining jobs. 

Najib said if there are areas the can be trimmed, then it should not be a problem. 

“If there’s areas they can reduce, such as jobs that are redundant, then why not? If there are organisations that can be pruned, why not?” 

Najib said privatisation was not a cure-all.

“It depends, privatisation has not been the panacea.” 

He cited the issues with Malaysian Airlines Bhd’s privatisation during Dr Mahathir’s first tenure as prime minister. 

“As you know, we privatised MAS during his (Mahathir’s) time, and we had to buy back at the same price.” 

Najib said the privatisation went awry, so the government had to bail MAS out. 

“Certain conditions need to be met before they say it’s (privatisation) the right solution.” . – March 12, 2019.