MALAYSIA
The Malaysian Public Service is about to go back to the future with the reintroduction of manual procedures, desk files and task flow charts in an effort to improve efficiency and cut red tape, Prime Minister, Dr Mahathir Mohamad said.
Dr Mahathir said the move would enable PS employees to know what to do when there was a request to execute a work procedure, because they were obviously having difficulties with the current systems.
He said he had discussed the matter with Chief Secretary to the Government, Ismail Bakar (pictured).
“If one does not know how to discharge one’s duty, one has to ask someone else,” Dr Mahathir said.
“This will delay the process.”
He said if there is a task flow chart, PS staff could perform their tasks and hand over the subsequent tasks to others.
Acknowledging the existence of the bureaucratic red tape in the Public Service, Dr Mahathir said work could not be done without bureaucracy, but problems arose when there were too many complicated processes to do something.
“For example, one person wants to run a tourism project in Langkawi,” the Prime Minister said.
“He has to seek permits from close to 20 Departments, so there’s a delay; sometimes the officers themselves are not very competent or do not know how to discharge their responsibilities.”
Dr Mahathir said Datuk Seri Ismail was striving to provide a procedure book for the public on what they had to do when they wanted to apply for something.
Meanwhile, the Public Service Department (PSD) has denied union claims that up to 400,000 Government workers are suffering from stress.
Senior Deputy Director of the Psychology Management Division at the PSD, Dr Abdul Jalil Hassan said he did not deny there were PS staff who were stressed, but it should be clearly understood there was negative and positive stress.
“Negative stress happens when something you want does not happen, while positive stress can improve the service and delivery of performance to the public,” Dr Abdul Jalil said.
Asked for the number of PS staff who were stressed, he said he did not have the data but planned to conduct a study.
Kuala Lumpur, 28 March 2019
