Three focus areas for reform, to add value to public service - KPPA

PUTRAJAYA: Director-General of Public Service (KPPA) Datuk Seri Mohd Shafiq Abdullah will give attention to three focus areas - digitalisation, fighting corruption and the adoption of collaborative thinking between the public and private sectors - for public service reform and to add value to the public delivery system.

Mohd Shafiq, who was appointed as the KPPA on Feb 10, said the delivery system should change in line with the post-pandemic era which required people-centred efficiency and effectiveness as well as bureaucracy reduction to drive the economic recovery.

"All agencies should work together by closing ranks and being more collaborative, not working in silos, and by optimising all sources through partnerships under the MyDigital initiative.

"This effort will be intensified by reviewing job descriptions and circulars to remain relevant," he said in a meeting with the media here on Tuesday.

In fact, he said any old circulars should be repealed if they were no longer relevant, and digitalisation should be intensified to reduce bureaucracy and fight corruption.

Mohd Syafiq said digitalisation was one of the methods in the fight against corruption as it would reduce face-to-face interactions between service recipients and service providers, hence reducing the room and opportunities for abuse of power and corruption.

Among the approaches that could be taken are outsourcing and using the use of digital technology, such as cameras to detect the offences and issue summonses," he said.

In an effort to fight corruption, he said regular job rotation was being implemented among civil servants who hold strategic positions to avoid abuse of power.

He said as of Dec 31 last year, 21 ministries had reached over 50 per cent compliance with the job rotation rule, while four other ministries - Ministry of Tourism, Arts and Culture; Ministry of Transport; Ministry of Youth and Sports; and Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation - yet to reach 50 per cent.

On anti-corruption efforts through the National Anti-Corruption Plan (NACP) 2019-2023, he said it was still ongoing and 26 ministries had developed their respective Organisational Anti-Corruption Plans while another ministry was in the process of doing so.

Mohd Shafiq said the Public Service Department (PSD) had requested all ministries to review the functions of their respective divisions and agencies so as to prevent overlapping in a bid to increase efficiency, effectiveness, and quality of delivery.

He said the PSD was involved in implementing initiatives such as producing highly skilled civil servants in digital and information and communication technology (ICT), improving digital skills among civil servants as well as preparing civil servants to implement the digitalisation of government so that public services could be delivered quickly and effectively.

"The PSD's target is to have 80 per cent more interactive and digital government services by 2025 from the current 68 per cent. Therefore we will increase the upskilling and reskilling of civil servants in line with the digitalisation and optimisation of the work process by improving the existing skills with additional training and re-skilling through specific training," he said.

Mohd Shafiq said cooperation between the public and private sectors would be continued following the effectiveness of optimisation during the COVID-19 pandemic in the health sector which outsourced the services of private hospitals and hospitals supervised by other ministries to optimise health capacity.

He said ministries and agencies had also been asked to look at the tasks and functions that could be outsourced by looking at economies of scale and return of investment (ROI) so that the government could focus on areas and locations where the private sector did not want to invest.

Mohd Shafiq said the civil servant-population ratio of 1:20 was not as large as claimed because the definition of civil service in Malaysia was different from other countries such as the United Kingdom which did not consider health as a public service.

Of the 1.6 million total civil servants now, as many as 300,000 civil servants are in the health sector and 600,000 in the education sector, he added.

-- BERNAMA