KUCHING: The appointment of Peninsular Malaysians to fill the posts of Grade 17 and below officers in the state federal civil service will be one of issues to be discussed by a special ad-hoc committee set up by the Malaysian Public Services Commission.
Its chairman Tan Sri Mahmood Adam said the special committee to study the needs of civil service sector here had been established to discuss in-depth all problems and issues faced by the public and civil servants.
He said that many had questioned why the Grade 17 and below positions were mostly filled by those from the peninsula rather than the local people.
He agreed that appointment to those posts should be given to Sarawakians instead.
“Why are we hiring people from the peninsula to fill the positions here? Giving them the post would create more headaches.
“Now, we are trying to investigate the cases. We need to study all the agencies to see how true the scenario is. These mismatches will only cause dissatisfaction among the people,” Mahmood told a press conference after chairing a dialogue session with heads of Federal Government agencies and departments, NGOs, local enforcement and other representatives here yesterday.
Also present at the dialogue held at the Youth and Sports Complex here were the commission’s secretary Datuk Ramli Juhari, Sarawak branch secretariat divisional secretary Mohd Saiful Sungkih Abdullah and state Federal deputy secretary Mohamed Zahari Razali.
Responding to a question on why it took so long before the commission finally started to take action on the matter, he advised the people to forget about the past and let the new administration work out the solutions.
He cited an example where Indian and Chinese accounted for about two percent each out of the 1.2 million job vacancies in the 2009-2011 period.
He said a committee was formed to rectify the issue and the result showed a rise to 5.6 per cent the following year.
The ad-hoc committee, Mahmood said would comprise representatives from NGOs, government officers, pensioners, retirees and representatives from all the races here including people with disability,
“We want to learn, gather inputs and identify all issues faced in the state. This is part of our engagement process to approach the people and make the commission people-friendly.
“We have to approach the people because we need to know all their problems. Issues in Sarawak may be different from other states in the country. Maybe there are some concerns over appointments,” he said.
Yesterday’s dialogue session was the commission’s 10th stop. The next stop is Sabah.