Penang Hop On Bus Service (FREE!)

Visitors to Penang can now enjoy a bus ride within George Town, the UNESCO World Heritage City, for FREE.

The Hop On Free Central Area Transit (CAT) ply the route between Weld Quay Jetty and Komtar on 15-minute intervals from 6am-12midnight.

Exploring the grounds of the UNESCO World Heritage City has never been this convenient now with 19 CAT stops in between all the famous heritage landmarks of Penang!



Read more

No End To Discrimination Stories

More readers of The Star have wrote in to say that they too have been discriminated against by The Malaysian PSD as the PSD DG (and of course the whole Malaysian government) continues their silence. Is this the way to treat Malaysians who complain through the "proper channels"? Or is our Government waiting for another mass rally before they act?

BTW, can our government for once define what are proper channels?


Complaint No.4

I REFER to press reports that quoted the Director-General of the Public Services Department as stating that “...of the 486,802 applications to work in the civil service last year, Chinese and Indians only accounted for 1.78% and 2.5% respectively.”

Since then I have also read letters to rebut the D-G's statement and in particular a letter by Au Yeong How regarding his attempts to enter the civil service albeit without success as the hiring system failed him.

My son also applied to join the police force in 2006 after graduating with a 2nd class LLB and he speaks fluent Malay, too.

He received an acknowledgement of his application but was not even called for any preliminary interview.

I was dissatisfied and e-mailed Datuk Ismail Adam using the address I obtained from the PSD website but as expected, there was no response.

If the very few non-Malay who have the minimum qualification applied and did not even get called for a preliminary interview, how does Ismail expect to recruit non-Malays into the civil service?

In addition, I would like to tell the D-G about what we hear on the ground in Sarawak – that although Sarawak has more non-Malay bumiputras, the government offices and even local councils are staffed mostly by Malays, especially at officer levels because the recruitment officers are mostly Malays from Peninsular Malaysia.

We can see this in certain local councils and government departments and of course it leads us to believe that the PSD is biased. Does the D-G want to correct this negative perception? Well, the ball is in his court now.

ANOTHER GOVT JOB SEEKER,
Kuching, Sarawak.


Complaint No.5


I REFER to the report “Few non-Malays applying, says PSD,” by the Director-General of the Public Services Department Tan Sri Ismail Adam (The Star, Dec 25) and wish to add my comments to that of Elsie Leei in “Case of once bitten?” (The Star, Dec 30).

Ismail’s statement that Government’s appointments are “based on merit or academic qualifications, not race?” is highly questionable as pointed out by Leei and Au Yeong How in “Qualified but can’t get government job,” (The Star, Dec 27).

The Government may have set fair policies but when it comes to recruitment and promotion, they do not work out that way.

Whether we want to admit it or not, the tendency to recruit and promote based on race is a common malaise in government departments.

This blatant disregard for fairness can be seen in my school.

Four years ago, a non-Malay colleague was appointed Ketua Bidang.

He had efficiently and responsibly carried out his duties for a good part of the year while waiting for his appointment letter.

But lo and behold, when the letter came, a Malay colleague who was well known for his lackadaisical approach to work got the job.

Recently, the school recommended a non-Malay colleague with 25 years experience for a senior administrative post but it was given to a Malay colleague who was much more junior in rank. Can the district and state education department sincerely say that such appointments are done based on merit or academic qualifications?

This is just a few among the many incidences that have occurred. Unless something is done to overcome this malaise and non-Malays are given the opportunity to achieve their full career potential “trying to reduce the gap between the races in the civil service” will continue to be a fruitless exercise.

FAIR & JUST,
Kuala Lumpur.

How (Dis)honest Is Our Government III

Non-Malays are just not interested in government jobs - Public Services DG, 25th Dec 2007

The DG said the Government had never condoned sympathy or discrimination when hiring new staff, including those at the Diplomatic and Administration level.

Here is a third response from a non-Malay in The Star, 29 Dec 2007:


ON BEHALF of the Malaysian Association of Social Workers (MASW), I wish to comment on the views expressed by the Director-General of the Public Services Department, Tan Sri Ismail Adam in “Few non-Malays applying, says PSD” (The Star, Dec 25).

He maintains “Non-Malays are just not interested in government jobs, judging by statistics?”

I think this statement is rather misleading and has to be taken in the context of what has transpired in the arena of employment in the civil service the past 30 odd years.

Where the recruitment of social work graduates is concerned, MASW has noted, firstly, that a significant number of non-social-work graduates have been accepted for social work related jobs in the Department of Social Welfare and the Department of Health.

These are the two main government departments that can offer social work based appointments.

Secondly, among these non-social work graduates, the majority are Malay candidates as evidenced in the current staffing, despite the fact that there were many non-Malay social work graduates who were very keen to, and applied for, these jobs in the 70s and 80s.

The feedback received by MASW over the years was from non-Malay social work graduates themselves as well as from their lecturers and supervisors.

Either they were told there were no vacancies upon enquiry or they were not called for interviews upon application or they were interviewed and turned down despite being highly recommended by their lecturers and supervisors.

There may have been pertinent reasons for this, as according to Tan Sri Ismail Adam, selection is “.. based on merit or academic qualifications?”

However, this situation has, rightly or wrongly, given rise to an observation that it is difficult for non-Malay graduates to enter government service.

Thirdly, among our non-Malay members, it has also been observed that even if they were recruited into government service, promotion is not easy to come by despite good performance.

There is a tendency to promote an employee based on the fact that he/she is “going to retire” rather than on competent practice. But this criterion is not applied as a standard rule for non-Malays.

Non-Malays have to be exceptionally, significantly, hard-to-ignore, competent and excellent to be considered for promotion, especially for high-level positions such as, for example, director-general.

Among the many reports from our members, one cited a case where a non-Malay staff member with professional qualifications and more than 10 years of working experience was not selected for the position of head, but was superseded by a non-social-work-trained Malay staff who was also 10 years junior in service.

Many such incidences, which we know also occur in other government departments, have discouraged non-Malays to apply for government jobs because they were concerned they would not be given the opportunity to achieve their full career potential.

This is the actual contextual background to Tan Sri Ismail Adam’s statement.

MASW is happy to know that the PSD is “..trying to reduce the gap between the races in the civil service.” as we believe that in a multi-ethnic society such as ours, the diversities should be mirrored in the public service whose primary responsibility is to serve the society.

ELSIE LEEl,
President,
Malaysian Association of Social Workers
Petaling Jaya.


JR: Does the PSD DG care to retract his statement now or does he still wants to stand by and let his nose grow longer? Anyway, I am NOT surprised NON of the Chinese whom replied mentioned about going to MCA for help.

How (Dis)honest Is Our Government II

Non-Malays are just not interested in government jobs - Public Services DG, 25th Dec 2007

The DG said the Government had never condoned sympathy or discrimination when hiring new staff, including those at the Diplomatic and Administration level.

Here is a second response from a non-Malay in The Star, 28 Dec 2007:


I REFER to “Samy to query PSD chief over report” (The Star, Dec 27) where Datuk Seri S. Samy Vellu questioned promotion opportunities for non-Malays in the civil service.

I am a Malaysian Indian and I have been working with a ministry as an assistant engineer for the past five years. I graduated with a degree in Civil Engineering with honours from Universiti Teknologi Malaysia two years ago.

I have applied for promotion to an engineer (J41) every year since graduating. The PSD hasn’t called me even once for an interview.

It never made sense to me why the PSD preferred fresh graduates when there are graduate assistant engineers waiting to be promoted.

I was voted Best Employee in 2005 with the ministry that I am now with. Even the Board of Engineers Malaysia and Institute of Engineers Malaysia have certified me as a qualified engineer. So there is no reason to turn down my application.

I look forward to the MIC president, looking into this matter as well.

MR K.
Kuala Lumpur.

How (Dis)honest Is Our Government?

Non-Malays are just not interested in government jobs - Public Services DG, 25th Dec 2007

The DG said the Government had never condoned sympathy or discrimination when hiring new staff, including those at the Diplomatic and Administration level.

Here is a reply from a non-Malay in The Star, 27 Dec 2007:

I REFER to your report 'Few non-Malays applying, says PSD' (The Star, Dec 25).

I am Malaysian Chinese who graduated with the Bachelor of Public Management (previously known as Public Administration) with Honours from Universiti Utara Malaysia, Kedah, many years ago.

I studied among others, Politics and Government in Malaysia, Public Policy and Fiscal Policy and Analysis. Actually, this course is to groom administrative and diplomatic officers for the Government.

Ironically, I can never be one, although I would like to serve the government. The reason is I failed in the first-level exam conducted by the Public Services Department (PSD).

Over the years, I sat for so many exams in Putrajaya. To my disappointment, each ended in failure though I do not know which paper I failed.

Our PSD director-general Tan Sri Ismail Adam mentioned that the hiring process is based on merit or academic qualifications. I strongly doubt it. Mind you, I was one of the top students in my course. I was in the Dean’s List for four out of six semesters.

If that was not enough, I also hold a master's degree and a diploma. As time went by, I lost my interest to serve the government because the hiring system failed me – time and again.

AU YEONG HOW,
Kuala Lumpur.

JR: I think Au Yeong How is definitely over-qualified to be a government servant. Putting him in government service would definitely make the majority (with very poor acedemic qualifications) inside look very bad indeed. He would also have to be promoted to a high post and this will be highly improper as he belongs to the minority race. As much as PM Abdullah would like to digress, I think Au's letter clearly shows how discriminative our public service is.

If academic qualifications are indeed important our public service positions will be filled by minority races and I am sure the forces that are will not allow this to happen as they will lose their rice bowl. If PM Abdullah is not convinced (the public definitely isn't) he has only to look at the racial composition of our foreign service and explain to us why it is filled with staff from only a single race.