On Sept 25, The Star\’s Metro section carried a story entitled \’S\’gor merry-go-round\’ and subtitled \’Ad-hoc transfers not the solution\’. It raised this question: \”Is there really a dearth of capable senior officers, leading to the officers having been shuffled around like someone performing a juggling act?\”

As a former Administrative and Diplomatic Services officer and member of the federal public services which staff the Selangor public services at senior level, I think the headline is an insult to the Public Services Department (PSD), the agency responsible for all appointments, transfers and promotions.

It imputes that the PSD is either not doing its job or that the Selangor government is hindering it from doing its job well. Could my good friend Ismail Adam, the Public Service chief, please clarify?

The PTD is the branch of federal public services wherein lies the full responsibility for federal public policy formulation. Together with ministers and their support staff, the PTD secretaries-general hold primary responsibility for policy formulation and articulation.

Historically, these two premier posts were viewed as a policy pair; with one a political appointee and the other a public services appointee – the latter was even called the \’permanent secretary\’ because the personnel did not change whenever the ministers were changed through political appointments or a cabinet reshuffle.

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Rather unfortunately though, in the last 20 years or so, Public Service officers appear to have become \”temporary appointees\” whereas ministers have become \”permanent appointees\”. Let us consider the case of the international trade and industry minister Rafidah Aziz, under whom at least five secretaries-general have served. If I am not mistaken, the sixth is currently in service.

This phenomenon has both its strengths and weaknesses. The strength is that the minister with such experience has both goal and role clarity and becomes an unqualified expert on the portfolio. The weaknesses are that the ministry may not be able to respond fast enough to changes and challenges in the global environment or to the needs on the ground because of traditional and embedded ways of looking at things. Rafidah\’s ministry appears to be losing grip on Malaysia\’s competitiveness via investment and industrial development, although it is still doing well in international trade.

PSD\’s silence baffling

Let us apply this framework of public policy advice or formulation to the four former Federated Malay States (FMS) of Selangor, Pahang, Perak, Negri Sembilan and to the two previous Straits Settlements of Penang and Malacca. None of these have state-based public services like Kelantan, Terengganu, Johor, Kedah, Sabah and Sarawak. Therefore, they are manned by PTD officers at policy level and by federal officers at other levels. Nonetheless, postings, transfers and promotions are directly under the PSD as they are a truly federal service.

I am therefore not surprised that The Star journalist could so accurately describe the massive failure of public services appointments and promotions in Selangor. The real question and issue is why the PSD is so silent on the matter. Why is there such a severe failure only in Selangor? Why not also in every one of the FMS or especially in the Straits Settlements?

The article was actually describing the musical chairs of incompetent performing officers being transferred to other state appointments after having served out their usefulness or even having failed to do so. Who is really responsible for all such appointments and overall policy performance of federal public servants at state-level if not the PSD?

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Let me take an obvious and infamous case which made a mockery of public policy based on parochial and sectarian interests, and saw the officer concerned being promoted without impunity. While at the Subang Jaya Municipal Council (MPSJ), the federal officer and then council president promoted and approved the illegal appointment of selected pesticide companies. One really wonders about the policy motivation of the officer in promulgating such an unwise policy.

The Sun went to town with this issue. Slowly but surely, none other than the Mentri Besar and state exco rescinded the order, even though contracts had been signed. The matter should have been settled at this point, since the order came from the highest level of public policy in the state. But no.

The same officer was promoted (one wonders about the policy basis of this) to become the state financial officer, or the ex-officio exco member and controlling officer for all financial operations. This officer has since issued yet a newer policy instruction – that all companies offering pesticide services to local authorities must be registered with the federal finance ministry. Did we hear this right? Yes, that was the instruction.

The \’new policy\’ was questioned by the Subang Jaya state assembly member and MCA representative at the MPSJ finance committee meeting. Lo and behold, again it was deemed to be an illegal and illegitimate policy! Even this member knew such a condition is under review under the General Agreement on Trades in Services, as it creates unfair advantages to open competition in tenders. Even more importantly, such a federal government policy is only in contracting for the supply of government services, but never for supply for private services.

Loss of propriety

My question to the PTD Establishment and Promotions Board is: how can such an incompetent and uninformed mis-performing officer be promoted as state financial officer? Who really decides on such promotions, which is a federal matter? As it appears, can we simply rely upon state authorities to make such appointments without due consideration for the neutrality and effectiveness of public services appointments? Are not such appointments, promotions and transfers under the full jurisdiction of the Public Services Commission rather than the state services commission?

If the PSD allows state authorities to control the transfer, promotion and appointment of all such federal policy makers, is the \’pendulum\’ policy-making in Selangor going to become the norm in all federated states as well? To my mind, senior PTD officers at the state-level have lost their sense of propriety in serving the public interest and have become subservient servants of other parochial and sectarian interests, as in this particular case.

To my knowledge and experience since 1972, the PTD service has been the premier and unique policy advisor to the government, with a mandate to give such advice without fear or favour. Today, though, the PTD service has become subservient to the particular interests of one party of the government, often sacrificing the larger public interests in the name of political expediency. The major historical success of Malaysia in development terms, other than based on political stability, has been the success of the public services in serving the public interest with fear of favour.

The last two decades or so have seen the rise of the \’political executive state\’ (and related concurrent non-PTD policy advisors or \’think tanks\’), and corresponding diminution of the role of the judiciary in providing checks and balances. This has resulted in the political corruption of the PTD service and consequent loss of neutrality of the public services. The case of musical chairs in the Selangor public service is only one symptom of this larger problem.

The federal public service should therefore revert to its role and mandate under the Federal Constitution and return to the neutral role of policy advisors. If this does not happen soon, the integrity of the public services cannot be retained. It follows that abuse and corruption cannot be arrested, as espoused by the current government.

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The cause of integrity has been the cornerstone of the government of Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi. The voting public gave him a 92 percent mandate to achieve improved integrity. I hope the government is aware that the same people will judge it based on this single word. But integrity, like art or beauty, is something aesthetic and will be judged for its overall achievement against the espoused theory, not against particular small successes or failures.

To an ordinary citizen like me, the success or failure of integrity will be decided singularly by the degree of public service delivery at the grassroots level. About 80 percent of my satisfaction will come from the level of local government. However, integrity at this level is truly questionable and one wonders if the Pak Lah government is aware of the current degree of dissatisfaction.

The Selangor government has become a lame-duck mechanism with swinging-pendulum operational policies. The people cannot trust, respect or honour the words of the Menteri Besar and his team any more. The gap between their espoused theory and the theory-in-use is too large and too wide.

Maybe it is time for the premier to reshuffle the cabinet in this state because of policies that rape and try to reap from the public trust. If Pak Lah does not plan to call a snap general election, the cabinet reshuffle remains the only hope. I hope I am wrong, but don\’t think that I am.