Unity gov’t must recalibrate racial diversity in Malaysia’s civil service

[superadmin]

THE Malaysian civil service is not only bloated in terms of the number of employed but consists of one ethnic group, predominantly the Malays.

This is the reason why the Sarawak Premier Tan Sri Abang Johari Openg asked the civil service to be opened up for the non-Bumiputera in Sabah and Sarawak, especially the Chinese.

Spokesperson of the G25 group, Datuk Noor Faridah Mohd Ariffin, has made a similar call asking the civil service to be opened up for the non-Bumiputera, particularly the non-Malays in the country.

She lamented that not only is the promotional prospect for the non-Malays is dim, but the presence of racial discrimination also prevents them from joining the civil service.

After more than 60 years of independence, the country’s civil service is predominantly composed of the Malay Bumiputera from the peninsula with minuscule participation of non-Malay Bumiputera and non-Malays, the Chinese and the Indians.

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Is a crack shaping up in PH with Maszlee complaining about Ramasamy?

MASZLEE Malik, the former Education Minister in the Pakatan Harapan (PH) administration under two-time premier Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, has urged the DAP to discipline Penang’s Deputy Chief Minister II Prof Ramasamy Palanisamy for his “insensitive” comments.

In a tweet, PKR’s Maszlee who failed to defend his Simpang Renggam parliamentary seat during the 15th General Election (GE15) has labelled Ramasamy as the “biggest liability to the unity government” and that DAP should act on him (Ramasamy) “before it’s too late”.


This spat between Maszlee and Ramaasamy erupted following a recent commentary by the Perai state assemblyman who called on the unity government of Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim to break up the domination of Malays in the civil service.

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[superadmin]

Ramasamy: My statement has been twisted for cheap publicity by fellow PH comrades

Letter to editor

My Facebook (FB) post on the need for reform in the country’s public service has been twisted and re-twisted by certain publications.

By doing this, they allowed certain cheap publicity seeking politicians to engage in race-baiting. These politicians have not referred to my original publication.

I wanted reforms in the public service as suggested earlier by the Sarawak Premier Tan Sri Abang Johari Openg and the G25 spokesperson Datuk Noor Faridah Ariffin.

However, the publicity seeking politicians in some of the component parties of Pakatan Harapan (PH), unfortunately, sought to re-interpret the second-hand news in the media to give a racial slant to my argument for reform in the civil service.

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Hassan: “Give Ramasamy a break, fellas; he’s just a reformist with good intentions”

PASIR Gudang PKR MP Hassan Abdul Karim has stepped in to vouch for ‘under fire’ Penang Deputy Chief Minister II Prof Ramasamy Palanisamy, pointing out that the latter has not raised any racial issue by addressing the justice of non-Malays in this country.

The former Parti Rakyat Malaysia (PRM) president further defended the Perai state assemblyman in that he was only calling for a reform “as opposed to revolutionising Malaysia’s public service sector so that it looks fairer and more balanced for a Madani (civilised) nation like Malaysia”.

“It is a fact and not an accusation that currently 90% of the country’s 1.2 million civil servants are Malays. The dominance is quite large. This is the issue for Dr Ramasamy,” justified Hassan who is now a PKR member in a Facebook post.

“Malaysia is a multi-racial, multi-cultural and multi-religious country. The writer has known Dr Ramasamy for a long time since he was a university lecturer. His good intention is to bring this issue to the attention of PM Anwar.’

Hassan further appealed for Ramasamy to be respected for he is after all a supporter of the reform agenda championed by Anwar.

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[superadmin]

“Call to increase greater racial diversity in the M’sian civil service!”

THE call by Penang deputy chief minister Dr P. Ramasamy that there is a need to reform the civil service, primarily to increase the intake of non-Malays, is timely and relevant.

If the reforms cannot be undertaken by the unity government, then no other administration can do this important and onerous task in the years ahead.

The unity government now comprises UMNO, a party that usually opposes this kind of reform and wants to ensure that Malay rights predominate and are paramount. With UMNO being part of the government now, this issue can be approached diplomatically to win their support.

Considering that the unity government is fragile presently, this issue can be considered later, perhaps next year. Any sensible and patriotic Malaysian will agree that there is a need for a greater intake of non-Malays to reflect the demographics of the country in the public sector to give it a more multiracial effect that has been lost in the last four decades.

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Emulate Penang’s public sector employment model to tackle civil service uproar

THE issue of public sector employment particularly the lack of non-Malay participation remains controversial and combustible.

Some irresponsible media twisted my recent argument of reforming the civil service by saying that I wanted the Malay monopoly to be broken.

This was not what I said and meant. And certainly, this is not what I envisioned for the future development of the country’s public service.

I merely wanted the recruitment of non-Malays to be improved to some extent, certainly not in the context of zero-sum game of placement and displacement.

Definitely, it was not about the question of robbing Peter to pay Paul. The example of the Penang state recent employment initiative might throw some light on what I said about reforming the civil service.

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