Lim said it must not be assumed that civil servants will blindly follow
the recent prompting for them to back BN in the elections. — File pic
“They (civil servants) must remember that the government of the day can
change. These political parties that form the government of the day,
they can come and go.
“So if these parties that rule, if they go into the wilderness, do you
follow them? No. You still remain a civil servant and your loyalty is to
serve the public professionally,” DAP national deputy chairman Dr Tan
Seng Giaw told The Malaysian Insider.
Newly-appointed Chief Secretary to the Government Datuk Seri Ali Hamsa
had recently raised eyebrows when he told his new charges that they
“should know better” than to believe the “empty promises” made by the
opposition.
Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng said Ali had clearly got off to a “bad start” with his statement.
“That was out of line. This is the first time that a KSN (Chief
Secretary) has done that. He got off to a bad start here,” he told The Malaysian Insider.
The DAP secretary-general, who also sits as a lawmaker in Parliament,
reminded Ali that as the country’s top civil servant, he should be
particularly respectful of the Federal Constitution.
“And the opposition, which he is telling his charges not to believe in,
is entitled to gain the same respect (as the ruling party). We are the
loyal opposition to His Majesty’s government,” Lim pointed out.
The Bagan MP said politics must be kept out of the civil service, and
disagreed with Ali’s assertion that that the loyalty of public servants
lies with the ruling party of the day.
“We must be loyal to the country, the Federal Constitution and the King.
We are not to be loyal to the ruling party. At the same time, they
cannot tread into politics,” he said.
PKR vice-president Nurul Izzah Anwar concurred with Lim, adding that
“loyalty to the nation” should never be equated as “loyalty to Umno and
BN”.
She acknowledged that public servants are duty bound to serve the
government of the day, as per the General Orders they follow, but she
reminded that their duty was also to “serve professionally”.
“They are not to be made tools and servants of the current government...
especially when it does not have their interest at heart,” she told The Malaysian Insider.
“They must implement policies cleanly, effectively and with
accountability and transparency — that is what the civil service should
be,” Dr Tan agreed.
The 1.4-million-strong public sector has been a traditional vote bank
for BN but the controversy over a new pay scheme and attacks on the
ruling parties by PR over bread-and-butter issues may offer the federal
opposition a glimmer of hope in the coming polls.
But recent days have seen top government officials go on an apparent overdrive to protect the BN government they serve.
Apart from Ali’s message to the civil service, Foreign Ministry
undersecretary Ahmad Rozian Abdul Ghani recently attacked a Canadian
newspaper for describing Najib as a “false democrat,” and insisted that
the prime minister had “an impressive track record by anyone’s
standards”.
“While the prime minister takes nothing for granted, he hopes he will be
given a mandate to continue Malaysia’s transformation,” the diplomat
added, appearing to campaign for the country’s sixth prime minister who
is due to call for polls within months.
A director at Putrajaya’s efficiency unit, Pemandu, also made a public
attack on PR on Wednesday for not improving the states it governs and
focusing on sniping and criticising the federal government’s efforts.
“All oppos do is snipe & critic wot is being done but not focused on
improving their states! Wot hv they done??” communications director
Alex Iskandar Liew said on his public account on micro-blogging site
Twitter, copying @barisannasional and @NRC11, a fan club dedicated to
the prime minister.
But despite this, Lim believed these subtle messages infiltrating into the civil service may be falling on deaf ears.
“I don’t think we should underestimate the intelligence of our civil servants,” he told The Malaysian Insider.
“They may be compelled and forced to carry out their duties because they
are instructed to do so. But once they retire, you see many of them
joining the opposition,” he pointed out.
Lim pointed out that it is not easy for civil servants to go against an
order they have received from above if they felt it was wrong.
“It is also not easy for them to just resign. It affects their rice bowls, after all,” he said.
But this, he added, does not mean that civil servants will necessarily
cast their votes for BN when stand before the ballot boxes
“Do not underestimate their intelligence,” he repeated.
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