The Malaysian Insight

DUE to “special circumstances”, the 1.6 million civil servants are needed in Malaysia, said Prime Minister Najib Razak today.

Najib said Malaysia’s civil service includes teachers, soldiers, police as well as healthcare staff, unlike other countries that took out certain services.

“Some countries they don’t include military and police, but we include everybody and I want to tell you that teachers alone constitute about 445,000 to 450,000.

“And another reason is because we have three types of schools. When you have three types of schools you need more teachers,” he said during the question-and-answer session at the Chinese Youth Summit held in Serdang.

Najib, who was responding to a question about Malaysia’s bloated civil service, said the number of teachers is likely to go up due to demands for more schools.

He also said that the number of healthcare staff was around 230,000, followed by 117,000 police personnel and 115,000 soldiers.

“So when you exclude teachers, police, soldiers, healthcare staff, you are left with only 680,000. Our civil service is not bloated actually. It’s big I agree but if you look at the numbers, it’s really not many. Don’t forget we are talking about three regions, Sabah, Sarawak and Peninsula.

“So that’s the reason why we have 1.6 million (civil servants). It’s not because we want a big civil service but because of the special circumstances that we face in this country,” he said adding that the size is manageable as long as the economy grows and revenue goes up too.

“I want people to realise that they (civil servants) are there to serve the rakyat, to protect you, to educate your kids and make sure you get good health services in the country.”

In April, Finance Minister II Johari Abdul said in an interview that Malaysia had one of the highest rations of civil service to population in the world with one civil servant to 19.37 citizens while Singapore’s is 1:71.4 people and Indonesia’s is 1:110.

According to figures obtained from various government reports, public sector emoluments (comprising of salaries, allowance and benefits) have surged 138% from RM32.5 billion in 2007 to RM77.4 billion (estimate) for 2017.

During the same period when emoluments have doubled, government revenue has only grown 57% from RM139.9 billion in 2007 to RM219.7 billion in 2017.

In 2007, emoluments consisted of 23% of government revenue while a decade later it consisted 35%.

Emoluments also saw double-digit growths when general elections are near. In 2008, emoluments grew at a rate of 25.89% while in 2012 emoluments rose 19.68%. – October 21, 2017.