Further Reminiscence of Angkasapuri

This is a continuation of the previous write-up on my stint at Angkasapuri which was one of the most enjoyable posting I had in my career as a civil servant.

On the first day of my reporting for duty as the Deputy Secretary-General, I received a call from someone who claimed to be a reporter, but he did not say from which newspaper. As someone who had been well grounded in Chapter D of the General Orders, I was wary of talking to the Press, not because I was unfriendly but more for the fear of being being misquoted and when the damage was done the repair would be superfluous. This guy asked me what I intended to do as the new Deputy and I politely replied that I needed to appraise first what priorities are awaiting for me before I could start anything to mend the "Labu". Hearing that he just put down the phone and I suspected it could have been an insider testing the waters.

As what Akhi Norzah wrote in his comments on my earlier posting, Angkasapuri was noted for its scandals involving top personalities with opposite sex , I was very much aware of this and as such my first priority was to erase that image by educating those who worked there that Angkasapuri was not the " Hollywood" which everyone thought it to be. Being hands on, I often practised MBWA, " Management by Walking About" and that surprised many people who were used to be left to their own devices. I recalled a few times when I walked around with Tok Mat and taking down notes as what he wanted to be done. Another person who was fond of jotting down what Tok Mat said during the Post-Cabinet Meetings was Dato' Jaafar Kamin, the DG of Broadcasting and was always teased by Tok Mat in his familiar phrase " Engkau tulislah je Ja'afar tapi satu pun tak buat". It dawned upon me that Angkasapuri was Tok Mat and Tok Mat was Angkasapuri, as most of the people whom I came across, including the Technical staff would not dare to do anything around the compound without the expressed permission from him.

One day I told En. Abdullah, an engineer in charge of the decorative lighting why some of the decorative lights were not functioning and still not removed and the reply was he had to wait for a directive from Tok Mat. I retorted back by saying that why he must wait for a directive on purely housekeeping matters and he just had no reply for that. I just instructed him to remove some of the 'junk' lights and told him that I would answer to Tok Mat, and of course nothing happened. But it proved the hold that Tok Mat had on everyone in Angkasapuri and I agree with Norzah that he was one of the most difficult Minister to understand, but once you gained his trust, it was just plain sailing.

One day Tok Mat asked me why some of the things he wanted done was still delayed and I explained to him that before we could start incurring any expenditure which was not voted for in the year must await the approval from the Treasury. I had asked the Treasury's approval for the work which he asked for and the reply I received was those items had been asked and approved before my assumption of duty and wanted to know what had happened to the funds that had been approved. That put paid to any further query from Tok Mat and he knew from then on that I was just doing my job as expected from a civil servant.

Another interesting discovery I made was how ridiculous was the thinking at the top levels of the Ministry that they had no strategic direction of an organisation and allowed almost everything to be decided by the Minister. As such I organised a course on OD (Organisational Development) by bringing in a consultant from outside with Treasury's approval of course. One senior officer from the Broadcasting Department just gave up and requested me to exempt him from the course when he saw the number of books he had to read for the three-day's course and the participants had to stay-in the training centre Bangi. But it was only an eye-opener and for the first time Dato' Jaafar Kamin dared to ask Tok Mat to let him complete the course when he was immediately summoned for something which was not tantamount to a life and death situation. To me that was a breakthrough, whereby he would not hesitate to drop anything whenever he was called by the Minister. After the course was over, Encik Din, the person responsible in conducting the course gave me a favourable feedback and said in order to make the change it was a good start but there must be a follow-up and unfortunately I was not there to see the change being sustained. It had been always the drawback for any reform in the public service organisations to be sustained due to frequent transfers of officers and the initiative just went away with the person. Nevertheless I had contributed to an incremental change no matter how short-lived it was.