Marks of a good chief secretary

Last Saturday, G Gnanalingam or TSG, a member of Pemudah, argued publicly that chief secretary to the government (KSN) Sidek Hassan should be considered for the CEO of 2010 Award. I cannot disagree.

Last week also, a total stranger I met at a closed-door dialogue on ‘Religion in the Public Space’ hosted by IAIS and EU, told me the exact opposite; he said that after the last GE I had praised the chief secretary too much and put too much faith on this one man.

To him the chief secretary had failed in a number of areas. With him, too, I agreed, but said that I have also explicitly chided the man (pulled rank to be more accurate, as I am his senior in the PTD Service) on two counts but that is all. Both were related to issues of poor human resources deployment of PTD officers in Penang and Selangor.

Otherwise, in my mind and heart, this KSN is the best one that, unfortunately, I did not serve.  We might even have made a very good team.

What then is the role of a good chief secretary and who can really be an excellent chief secretary? Many years ago, Malaysian Business once called the then-mayor of KL, “A Civil Servant Extraordinaire” on their cover page. He never made chief secretary.  

And yet, a few years later, the same man was killed “politically” and found to be “guilty of exceeding his jurisdiction” when he was rumoured to be “considering contesting the post of branch chairman of one of the Umno branches in the Federal Territory”. Of course, the grounds for his real exit from the public services was some other lame excuse.

Fortunes of good and sometimes, great people, are created and destroyed by the media listening to rumours, or without investigative journalism; and often times the media can be less than discerning about the political nuances under the surface of ‘real politics’ in Malaysia.  

Sidek ( right ) is someone I will always consider a very good friend. So also are TSG and TS Yong Poh Kon the co-chair of Pemudah. They both think that Sidek has done a great job; even if sometimes he appears to the rest of us to be “conceding too much to the powers that be”. It is simply not an easy job.

Having served about 30 years in the public services, allow me to reflect and ponder aloud what the marks of a good chief secretary are, and why, if TS Sidek’s term is extended for one more year, he should make it his goal to finish his job excellently well. He has the best chance to; moreover I think this may be the last PTD officer holding that open post.

Foremost change agent

The chief secretary must always be the foremost change agent of the public services. Unlike the days of a ‘maintaining public administration’ in then-Malaya, today we must focus on development administration and higher value innovation for quality services delivery.

Simply setting up institutions and superstructures and maintaining them at the same old levels are not good enough. These institutional structures must have both: intent and purpose to drive value innovation and development. Comprehensive development of the nation-state is an absolute new value creation proposition.

Global economics and societal dynamics must become the framework for that change agenda.  And change we must because we are a very small nation in an ocean of competition. India and China were sleeping giants but now are fully awake. Indonesia will overtake us in every sense of the word, if we continue in our mediocrity. We might even be sending maids to Vietnam, if we are not vigilant and careful.

The chief secretary must also reframe and lead strategic intent of the public services. In the past this was done through his role as the chairman of the National Development Planning Committee. Today, if I am not wrong, that role is all but almost dead; what with the NEAC, Pemudah and Pemandu; one has taken over longer-term planning, the other project management and monitoring functions and the third, all systems improvement functions.  

I hear the traditional NDPC, EPU and Mampu have therefore become not so relevant today. Both the first two PMs relied on and fully utilised the EPU’s planning role, but since the Dr Mahathir Mohamad era we have seen the EPU become the “project management role for bumiputera acquisition and growth of the Bumiputera Commercial and Industrial Community (BCIC).

That morphed into the so-called “privatisation agenda, but which has since become the ‘piratisation’ agenda.” The “ sogoshosha ” model of Japan has become the “ sunggoh susah ” model of Malaysia.

The chief secretary must also become the CEO of the public services as the PM remains the CEO of the government of Malaysia. As the chief public services officer, he must chair a strategic management meeting of all public services functions; especially with those who have legal and legitimate enforcement responsibilities.

These include the AG, the IGP, and the Armed Forces chief, etc. The point being made here is that the secretary to the cabinet is of a minister rank and all other public servants must report to the chief executive officer of the public services.  

Good Governance Committee

In my lexicon, politicians are only just that; with their politics of whims and fancies but nevertheless the drivers of public policy. They can only rely on legitimate procedures to get things done.

The two former ministers being charged in court make this issue real and relevant. They are not chief executive officers of ministries, but rather they are there only to set policy directions. The secretaries-general are the true blue policy advisors. The proposed new governance structure with relevant secretaries-general can and should be called the Good Governance Committee of the Public Services.

Finally, the chief secretary must also become the chief performance evaluator of the performance mandate of the government of the day.

In this committee, he should have the Treasury chief and accountant-general (to ensure all due financial procedures are followed), public services chief (for excellent human resources management, the auditor-general, and the ICU chief (as integrator of all relevant and useful information) etc to audit for good governance and proper enforcement of all government procurement procedures.

While the incumbent chief secretary may therefore deserve the award, as per the TSG vote, my take is that KSN Sidek, if his tenure is extended one last time, should make this his final agenda: to reform the public services and establish a new good and proper governance system which can undertake the job without fear or favour.

The truth is that, in the era of 22 years of a republican type of leadership of the nation, we have inadvertently destroyed the quality and calibre of public servants who perform as good and effective public policy advisors.

We have instead created a cadre of efficient “project manager-types” who can only focus on the ‘what and how’ of public projects, without even asking fundamental questions about the public interest nature and needs for such projects. The public services cannot get any lower than that.  

The number of senior public servants and ministers being charged in court is evidence of this phenomenon. So, one last time, KSN Sidek… Saya Yang Bertanggungjawab … then we will see excellence, not mediocrity. May God give the KSN wisdom to see my argument.