The bombshell news that was announced at the grand PICC in Putrajaya by the PM on the abolishment of the new remuneration scheme which came into being on 01 January 2012 was welcomed by many in the Public service as shown above. After all the hard work put in by the team in PSD for the past two years,everything went down the drain. It was not their fault, but it is a reflection of the quality of leadership at the top which is in question.
Under normal circumstances, any new scheme which was to be implemented should have been thrashed with all the stakeholders,especially the public service unions,especially the umbrella body, CUEPACS. However, this time around it was CUEPACS who objected the loudest and it seemed that they were not well informed of the implications.
Going by past practice, the nitty gritty would have been solved at the various rounds of meetings with the unions and only after making sure of their support, would the scheme be put before the Cabinet Committee for endorsement.
Most probably owing to circumstances beyond the control of PSD, there was no time to point out that the Emperor had no clothes. Thus it ended in a tragedy for the poor top leadership in the Civil Service. But never mind, at least a lesson has been well learned, that in future there must be someone who should shout that the Emperor had no clothes.
4 comments:
Dear Hal,
This is fundamental.Things can't be shoved down. Anyone would know that. Obviously there were reasons.Even then Cuepacs while welcoming the scrapping still wanted certain parts to be retained. There were certain positions upgraded,Forest Rangers and a few others to remain.
Incidentally with the revised 7,9 and 13% would pensioners benefit too?
Hank
Dear Hank,
I did not dispute that. But the greatest flaw of the scheme lies in its violation of the principle which had been paramount in all past salary revisions, ie. "Rate for the job". Obviously principles which had been the fundamental cornerstone in determining public service remunerations have been ignored. I am not pretty sure how the increases for existing officers can also be enjoyed by pensioners. Pensioners live in accordance to what is formulated by the government. The lower categories are the ones who should be given more consideration as the cost of living spiral upwards.
I have ceased to read about the salary ups and downs because nothing benefits me, not being a pensioner myself. But I know every time the salary goes up I have to fork more money for the prices of essentials that will follow suit.
Who does the calculation and justification and who decides where the money should come from?
Dear Pak Cik,
Under the old system, salary revisions in the public sector had been done by the various Salary Commissions, beginning from the Benham scale (Frederic Benham was an economist who recommended the first public sector salary scales) then followed by the Royal Commission headed by Tun Suffian for the general public service, then The Aziz Commission for the Teachers and Ibrahim Ali Commission which was rejected by the Govt. Thus salary revisions was the purview of people who were mostly Judges sitting as Chairman in the initial period of our public service. The principles adopted did not vary too much from that adopted in other Commonwealth countries and the final determinant would be the ability of the Govt. to fork out the money. Now the personal emoluments allocated by the Govt. every year is quite hefty, and thus every time salaries go up so does prices. This vicious circle has to stop and unless we pegged the salary revisions to productivity, the country might run into bankruptcy.
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