With the government now financially straitened and debts running high, every single cent from the national coffers has to be prudently spent where it is absolutely needed.

Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim made quite a number of promises on the eve of the state elections, two of them on resolving the people’s woes.

In one, he said the government would propose a modest pay rise for civil servants when tabling the 2024 Budget in October. In another, the government is mulling a RM1 billion fund to establish a mechanism to subsidize private sector wage adjustment, in a bid to help the private sector weather the spiraling inflation.

It is understandable that PM Anwar resorted to distributing candies just ahead of the intense state polls. Nevertheless, poll results show that such a tactic doesn’t actually work.

Now that the promises have been made, we will see how the government is going to put that into implementation. Civil servants, private sector employees and PN politicians will be watching very closely!

Firstly the pay rise for civil servants. Anwar has pledged to review the wages and benefits for civil servants in very near future, because they have not enjoyed any wage adjustment for ten years, and their current wages can hardly reflect the heavy workload of these civil servants.

Indeed, the salaries of civil servants, which have remained unchanged for ten years, need to be reviewed, but the margin of pay rise will have to be determined by the country’s financial health.

Malaysia currently has more than 1.7 million civil servants, with additional 700,000 on pension. Based on our 34 million population, the ratio of civil servants to the population is 1:20, significantly lower than that of Japan 1:128, China and Indonesia 1:110, Singapore and South Korea 1:71, and Taiwan 1:66.

And since we have an abundance of civil servants, we need to know why our civil servants are still plagued with excessive workload.

We need to thoroughly review the country’s entire public service sector to identify where the problem actually lies. Is it because our civil servants and members of the public are made to deal with unnecessary red tape? Our public service efficiency will remain undesirable if the operation procedures are not optimized and KPIs not clearly set out.

Tourism minister Tiong King Sing said from the feedback he received from travel operators, international tourists, airline companies and F&B operators, that our tourism board had not been doing a good job promoting the country internationally, unlike their peers in regional countries which are avidly packaging their tourism products to woo global tourists.

Similarly, immigration and customs officials at the Johor end of the Causeway are also known for their poor job efficiency.

Allocations set aside under Budget 2023 is a whopping RM386,14 billion, or 20.4% of the country’s GDP, while budgetary deficit is expected to be around 5% of GDP.

Of this total, operating expenditure (civil servant remunerations and interest payment) takes up RM289.1 billion, and only RM99 billion has been set aside for development expenditure (including public infrastructure).

With 74.9% of the budget channeled to operating expenditure, there isn’t much money that is available for development!

Modest wage adjustment for civil servants? Well, if each of the two million plus on government payroll gets RM200 extra a month, that will mean almost RM6 billion more to be drawn from the national coffers!

We are not against a pay rise for civil servants, but we hope the government will simultaneously look into the reality of our severely bloated civil service.

As for the RM1 billion fund for private sector wage adjustment, this proposal is itself contentious.

Firstly, the government will need to identify the reasons for unchecked inflation and try to put things under control. Draining the national coffers to tackle inflation is never a bright idea in the first place.

Secondly, RM1 billion may be far from sufficient for private sector employees in dire need of government assistance. Moreover, what is the yardstick used to assess which private companies are in need of the subsidy, or who will eventually benefit from it?

Thirdly, we feel that it is individual companies’ obligation to provide reasonable remunerations and perks, safe work environment and future career prospects for their employees, and the government is not obliged to put its hand on it, less so to channel taxpayers’ money to companies not paying their staff reasonably well.

In its stead, the government should create a conducive business environment, provide comprehensive public infrastructure and an efficient and corruption-free public service system.

While money may settle most of our problems, care must be taken not to dry up our resources indiscriminately.

With the government now financially straitened and debts running high (to a tune of RM1.2 trillion as of February 2023), every single cent from the national coffers has to be prudently spent where it is absolutely needed.