There are 1,118,392 civil servants in our country as at 31 December 2005. This works out to about 4.3 percent of the total population of 26 million.

Although the government has pushed the privatization concept to lessen government’s financial burden and to reduce the size of the civil service, the figure shows that civil service has in fact grown by 14 percent the last five years.

In a reply to Nur Jazlan bin Mohamed (BN-Pulai), the PM Department said that in principle, the creation of civil service positions are based on the need of the Public Service and not based on racial considerations.

However, we have heard so many times in Parliamentary speeches that there was a need to Malaysianise the civil services because of the overwhelming presence of one racial group in the service.

We also get a situation when government’s counter services are almost paralyzed because most of the staff have to take leave to travel back to celebrate festivals.

The civil service is an important player in our country. That’s why PM has given much attention to improve public services with emphasis on better delivery system, new mindset, integrity, good governance and ethics.

Abdullah has put his political fortune on the success of his reform pledge and the effective implementation of the Ninth Malaysia Plan. He therefore needs efficient and effective public services to support him.

Much has been said by Abdullah on improving delivery system. There are some improvements here and there. But we are still far from transforming our civil services into a First World Service with a First World Mentality.

Here is the racial breakdown of our civil service:

Tahun Malay Cina India Bumi(non- Malay) Lain-lain Jumlah

2000 750,604 78,345 48,823 64,705 36,987 979,464
2001 755,431 82,026 50,308 66,312 40,471 994,548
2002 783,712 84,238 53,450 70,843 33,900 1,026,143
2003 829,221 101,831 56,560 82,311 10,963 1,080,886
2004 858,085 87,613 51,175 90,778 10,987 1,098,638
2005 880,204 85,204 49,711 92,338 10,935 1,118,392