Dept heads need to stop issuing administrative warnings - Ali Hamsa

Punishing civil servants for disciplinary mistakes by merely issuing them administrative warnings should be stopped, said Chief Secretary to the Government, Tan Sri Dr Ali Hamsa.

He said this type of punishment was too light and did not reflect the aspirations of the government to ensure that all civil servants clean up their negative acts which might affect their services to the people.

"Administrative warnings are unrecorded, when civil servants commit an offence, they should be given a warning as well as disciplinary action must be taken such as pay cut, no promotions and even being sacked.

"In case of getting a warning, the minimum action the civil servant has to face is no promotion for a year ... but if the head of department issues an administrative warning, he or she will not be liable for any action.

"So, we will issue a circular to the heads of departments to abstain from issuing administrative warnings after this," he told reporters after attending a special gathering of Terengganu state civil servants with the Chief Secretary at Wisma Darul Iman here today.

A total of 3,000 civil servants in the state attended the event.

He said many department heads only issued administrative warnings to their staff who commited disciplinary offences because they wanted to be good heads to their employees under them, but this was wrong.

"If an employee is given a disciplinary warning, they can be investigated by the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) and can be punished for the offence committed," he said.

He also wanted the civil service to be made more productive by encouraging multi-tasking so there was no wastage of manpower and further excellence could be achieved in public service.

"In the private sector, the staff are familiar with performing various tasks (multi-tasking), as well as carrying out their own special task," he added. --Bernama