Story by Chan Lilian
Pix by Ahmad Adil Muhamad
FIRST the carrot, then the stick.
Civil servants in Penang received the joyous news that everyone will get half a month bonus or a minimum of RM600 as “duit raya”. A total of RM11.8 million will be paid to almost 11,000 civil servants.
The announcement made by Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng on July 17 at the Trader’s Hotel grand ballroom was received with applause and smiles.
However, the state government, which aims to be of international standard and becoming an international city and not one which is a carbon-copy of other cities, also promised appropriate action on those not up to mark.
State Secretary Datuk Farizan Darus told members of the press that a management level civil servant had been sacked and two more from the support service under the State Secretary’s administration also suffered a similar fate.
“These civil servants were found to have breached the civil service work ethics. We are not a private company, we are in public service and we are accountable to the public. Hence, we hope these stern actions will be a lesson to all civil servants,” Farizan said.
Earlier, Farizan in his speech at the civil servants gathering informed that there are 10,945 civil servants in Penang.
He also praised the departments which had successfully achieved four-star ratings in various areas and received commendation and awards.
“We know the rakyat wants excellent services from us. Give what you expect as a rakyat. Carry out your duties guided by the principles from our leaders. Delivery must be full of integrity, fast, accurate and consistent. We demand punctuality too,” he said.
Lim, who also spoke to the civil servants, said: “In our second term as the state government, we now move on to an outcome-based budgeting. There must be value for money and it is important to carry out your duties wisely and efficiently and deliver what the rakyat demands.”
Lim also provided several important factors that can help Penang to become an international city.
“We need to study how economies successfully transformed themselves into a high-income developed economy. For too long we have been held back by despotism and convulsed by corruption and extremism. Amongst the common Critical Success Factors (CSF) of developed economies are rule of law, open markets, good governance, integrity in leadership that fights corruption, focus on building and retaining human talent, a livable city that is clean, green, safe and healthy; as well as building democratic institutions that respect diversity and human dignity,” he said.
“Penang can learn, emulate and adopt the same CSFs to achieve our vision of becoming an international and intelligent city that is developed with a high-income economy. Our dream is to identify Penang and innovation as twins where Penang is a beacon of learning, tolerance and trade in Malaysia.”
The civil servants gathering was the first one held in 2014.
It started as early as 4.30am when the state assemblymembers, area coordinators and heads of departments and other top-level civil servants gathered for “sahur” or the meal at dawn before fasting starts.
Mutiara.