Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Budget 2011- How to REDUCE the Civil Service Costs and Boost the Economy

To me there are 2 problems that should be tackled to redress the problem of manpower and resources.
1.The civil service is overstaffed by possibly 30% and this has contributed to ever increasing operating costs, both direct and long term as in pensions and health costs.
2.Over dependence on foreign workers who are working in factories as operators, supervisors and technicians. While foreign workers do contribute to GDP, they tend to remit billions overseas that could boost the local economy if spent in Malaysia.
This Budget does not suggest how we could train the civil servants to take up some of these jobs being done by foreign workers.

I suggest the government freezes all recruitment unless the post is really critical and starts a 3-year program to train all temporary staff to take up jobs in the private sector. This is where skills training can play a more meaningful role to train people to become useful to industry.

Such training should be on a co-pay basis; with the employee paying 30% of costs until the skills upgrading is successful and he/she is placed in industry - then the full training costs can be claimed. Those who decline this option will not have their contract renewed.

In my opinion, we should target a more balanced budget with the ratio of operating:development costs being reduced to below 40%. This means that for every RM1of government revenue, only RM0.40 is needed to run the government and RM0.60 available for development.
You will find that many international companies are able to achieve this type of ratio.
Government in Malaysia has become too BIG and so INEFFICIENT. It is time we CHANGED the government to remove much of the DEADWOOD.

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