5 secretaries-general to move this week

Khoo Gek San Khoo Gek San Updated 4 years ago · Published on 16 Dec 2019 7:00AM · 4 Comments

Putrajaya is acting on a few ministers’ request to have new secretaries-general as Pakatan Harapan moves into its third year in power. – The Malaysian Insight file pic, December 16, 2019.

FIVE ministries will see the transfer of senior civil servants this week, part of changes to eight ministries expected by year-end following requests by ministers.

The transfers involve the secretaries-general from the Rural and Regional Development, Human Resources and Entrepreneur Development Ministries, said a government source.

The source said the transfers do not mean sabotage had taken place but made at the ministers’ requests to ensure smoother operations.

The three ministries mentioned are part of the eight that The Malaysian Insight reported on earlier this month involving changes of senior civil servants as Pakatan Harapan moves to deal with an alleged “deep state” within the civil service.

The other ministries involved are Agriculture and Agro-based Industry; Tourism, Arts and Culture; Education; Communications and Multimedia; and Works.

The change at the Agriculture Ministry involved its secretary-general Mohd Sallehhuddin Hassan, who was moved to the Public Service Department (PSD) pool, and Tourism Ministry secretary-general Isham Ishak’s move to the Transport Ministry.

Director-general of primary industries Dr Tan Yew Chong was also moved back to the PSD, while Home Ministry deputy secretary-general Jamil Rakon was promoted to secretary-general at the same ministry.

The vacancy for secretary-general in the Agriculture Ministry will be filled by former Perak state secretary Zainal Azman Abu Seman.

The secretary-general’s post in the Tourism Ministry and Primary Industries Ministry is still vacant.

Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad earlier this week was asked about the alleged deep state within the civil service that was sabotaging the PH administration. He said he would look into such claims.

The existence of a “deep state” within the civil service has been mentioned by a few ministers but it remains unclear if it is an organised secret body or individual civil servants who are pro-Barisan Nasional or who have yet to adjust to working under the new government.

The government source told The Malaysian Insight that since PH took over the federal administration, “many” civil servants near the retirement age were released, while those on contract were not extended.

“Under the PH government, many civil servants are leaving once their term expires, they’re not being extended.”

The source said one of these would be the Chief Secretary to the Government, Ismail Bakar, who was appointed to the post in August last year.

He is due to retire on January 9 when he turns 60 and won’t have his service extended.

The new chief secretary is likely to be from the Finance Ministry, said the source. – December 16, 2019.

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Comments

  • Instead of replacing the incompetent ministers they change the secretary generals instead. The civil servants are paying for the ministers incimpetency

    Posted 4 years ago by Elyse Gim · Reply

  • When do u ever hear our top senior govt servants are of high competency?We use to have some effective top govt leaders but the executive institution is destroyed by Jib who adopted to bribe and been bribed policy. Those involved are aspired to leave asap, those clean ones are at low rank level bcos been deprived of promotion bcos insist to stay clean. A thorough clean up is inevitable.

    Posted 4 years ago by James Wong · Reply

  • Sack them/demort them/put them in desk jobs/to powerless positions. No point transfer at same rank. Hey will cause the same damage wherever they go

    Posted 4 years ago by Maniraju Maruthai · Reply

  • When you throw peanuts you get Monkeys. The Ministers we have right now are Monkeys. One advocates flying cars.....can you believe that? We have poor emergency management all over Malaysia and the environment is changing because of global warming-one tsunami is going to whack Malaysia and thousands will be dead. Malaysia cant even handle the 6 decades of floods in Malaysia. Our health system is kaput-government hospitals are 3rd rated and the public deserve better. Our Ministry of educations first policies was to get students to wear black shoes-another Monkey leading the department.

    Get rid of these people. Dont bring egg heads with PhDs from Malaysia-Malaysian PhDs are toilet paper, handing out 600 a year is ridiculous! Get Non-Malays involved-the indigenous community, Chinese, Indians and smart, smart Malay ( many around)-let them turn this country around. We dont want Ketupat heads, we want smart, innovative and caring Malaysians. The day we pick smart people to govern this country rather than cronies, Malaysia will rise. More Non-Malays in the government will make it dynamic-otherwise you will have a Nasi Lemah civil service-enough of that rubbish.

    Posted 4 years ago by Nyaz Yussoff · Reply