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By Terence Fernandez (The Sun) THE Selangor Government must be lauded for doing something that the previous administration only embarked on as an afterthought – taking punitive action against incompetent and corrupt civil servants.
In Sept 20, 2007, then Mentri Besar Datuk Seri Dr Mohamad Khir Toyo decreed that below-par civil servants would be sacked or put to pasture early by way of VSS (voluntary separation scheme). The furthest he got, however, was awarding brooms to under-performing local councils, as six months later his administration was booted out in the general election. Last Thursday, colleague Llew-Ann Phang and I spent an hour with Ronnie Liu, the executive councillor for local government, research and development. Liu was uncharacteristically coy when discussing the punitive measures taken against state officers who breached the public trust. He told us about 20 people had either been transferred or lost their jobs for various offences. He declined to name these officers or their departments for good reason – that the state is continuing its investigations and expects more people to be hauled up. While one understands the need for confidentiality in an ongoing probe, at the same time, as a politician Liu needs to be accountable to the public who put him there to clean up the mess. This move will take the heat off the state which had been under criticism for its perceived sluggishness in addressing issues of the past, while at the same time making boo-boos in the implementation of policies and governance. For example, voicing that it was willing to compromise on its “no hillslope-development” policy, appointing fewer NGOs as local councillors than what was promised and removing politicians from tender boards, hence doing away with any sort of internal checks and balances by giving civil servants a free hand in deciding who gets contracts. After much criticism, these have been reversed but the state has a complex problem when it comes to dealing with civil servants used to one way of doing business for 30 years. After 16 months in power, Mentri Besar Tan Sri Abdul Khalid Ibrahim, Liu, Teresa Kok, Hassan Ali, Dr Xavier Jeyakumar and the rest are still trying to figure out who can be trusted with state secrets and be relied on to carry out policies. It is no secret that there are civil servants who are still loyal to their previous political masters. How else do you explain documents falling into the hands of the Opposition? All these should be addressed and we laud the efforts of the Opposition led by the former mentri besar in keeping the present government on its toes. Having said that, the present administration which is fond of accusing the authorities for going after the ikan billis should also pull up its socks and take to task senior officers who had abetted the previous government in questionable land deals. When they were in the Opposition, members of the present administration had criticised the rent-seeking consortium exercise where all pest-control companies in Subang Jaya needed to register with the consortium if it wanted to do business in the municipality. One of those who came up with the idea was the council president who today is chief financial officer. Today one of the officers involved in talks on the water deal with concessionaire Puncak Niaga Holdings Bhd is leading the team to renegotiate the contracts where he faces a former exco member – a politician who is today a director for Puncak Niaga. “I need to keep them there to answer for past decisions,” was Abdul Khalid’s response when we asked him about keeping such officers. Well and good Tan Sri, but what guarantees do you have that they are not working against you? I would like to think that the suspension of the head of another subsidiary, KDEB, in the Balkis investigations is a sign that the state government is taking a tougher stance against those suspected of complicity in past wrongs. The action against the 20-or-so is a good start but one hopes that the big fish will be hauled up too.
Terence reminds the Selangor administration that people expect more from them because they campaigned on a platform of transparency and integrity. It is not the voters’ fault if they oversold themselves. He is deputy editor (special reports & investigations) and is reachable at
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