8/14/2019 TheSun 2009-11-04 Page12 Slow Boat to Catch Big
Fish
1/1
speak up!12 theSun | WEDNESDAY NOVEMBER 4 2009
Managing Editor: Chong Cheng HaiConsultant Editor: Zainon
AhmadExecutive Editor: Lee Boon SiewDeputy Editor: Patrick
Choo(Production),Editor: R. Nadeswaran (Special Reporting and
Investiga-tions)
General Manager, Advertising and Marketing:Charles PetersSenior
Manager, Production: Thomas KangSenior Manager, Distribution
Channels:Joehari Abdul Jabbar
Tel (Editorial) : 03-7784 6688Fax: 03-7785 2624/5Email:
[email protected]
Tel (Advertising) : 03-7784 8888Fax: 03-7784 4424Email:
[email protected]
TELLING IT AS IT IS
Slow boat to catch big fish
Dont forget the stick
How to stop senior doctor on the prowl?ITwas recently reported
that Women, Family and Com-munity Development Minister Datuk Seri
ShahrizatAbdul Jalil had reminded employers that they musttake
sexual harassment reports seriously.
She also pointed out that many victims view theharassment as
being too personal, the allegations arenot easily proven and the
victims feel that they are be-ing punished and judged instead of
the perpetrator.
We have often read and heard about junior doc-tors or staff of
government hospitals being bulliedor overworked by the seniors. But
I was shocked torecently learn from my younger sister that she
wasbeing sexually harassed by a senior doctor.
Sexual harassment behaviour, acts or tendencies
by the perpetrator do not develop overnight. The staffat the
hospital know that the senior doctor has beensexually harassing
staff, but none of them dare to takeany action as he is head of a
department. The fact thatthe doctors actions have gone unchecked
emboldenshim to continue his despicable criminal acts.
Can the Women, Family and Community Devel-opment Ministry, the
Health Ministry or the HumanResources Ministry provide the correct
but confidentialprocedure for my sister to lodge a sexual
harassmentcomplaint against the head of department?
Adri Hemy Abdul Ghani
Jeddah
IT is heartening to know that our pr ime minister istrying hard
to search for ways to motivate civil servantsto perform. As a
retiree who has worked in the govern-ment service and the private
sector, I wish to sharesome of my experience on motivating
staff.
It is useful to state at the outset that the civil serv-ants
today are amply paid for the type of job that theydo and the secure
environment that they work in. Sothe element of not being
adequately compensatedshould not arise. So what is lacking? When I
started out
as a young officer fresh out of college at the Rubber Re-search
Institute of Malaya (RRIM), we were motivatedto work by an inherent
interest in doing a good job,earning the respect of our peers and
the industry weserve and last but not least, maintaining the RRIM
asthe foremost research institute in the world. In short,pride in
our work is the first and perhaps the mostcrucial factor. When that
environment proved to be lesschallenging, it was time for me to
move on.
In the private sector, the job was both interestingand
challenging. And most of all, learning to do morewith less, a
laymans way of saying higher productivity.Like sharing your
secretary with the rest of your staffin my first plantation
company. Here it was still, if youdid a good job you get rewarded
but the slackers werenot really punished.
My third job at another plantation company provedeven more
interesting and educational. Here the or-ganisation was even
leaner. I shared a clerk with mystaff. But the job still needed to
be done and I hadseven operating centres reporting to me. Here, the
topmanagement (the major shareholder) had not forgot-ten about the
stick being the other component ofeffective motivation. If you dont
perform, you are sureto get a lot of heat. But when you do, you get
amplyrewarded by a generous ESOS allocation. In case youmissed it.
It was the stick that you would feel and driveyou before you tasted
the reward. In this system, if youdo perform, then you have less to
worry about butdont you sit back and take your foot off the pedal.
Ifyou slack, you either shape up or ship out.
This last plantation company started out as a smallindustrial
gas company and grew to be one of the larg-
est companies listed in Bursa Malaysia in less thantwo decades.
So there is a lesson to be learned herefrom a highly successful
Malaysian story. Dont forgetthe stick. But also reward handsomely
when theperformance is delivered.
The chief secretary to the government must not toforget the
stick while contemplating yet another set ofrewards. When you have
been amply paid, work of itsown accord should be the primary
motivating factor.Reward should be a consequence of having done
a
good job. I am not saying that most civil servants arenot doing
their jobs satisfactorily. On the contrary, myexperience is that
the staff of Hospital Universiti Ke-bangsaan Malaysia (HUKM) are
doing an excellent job.Whenever I make my bi-monthly visits, I can
sense thatthe doctors and staff are doing their best in attendingto
you (and the hospital handles thousands of patientsdaily). Here is
an institution that is dispensing goodquality service as a social
obligation and responsibilityto the rakyat, as opposed to those
organisations set upto collect money from you.
Having a few words in private with the slackers maynot achieve
the desired result of eliciting improvedperformance. Then what? You
will still need to devisesome tangible and visible systems to
reprimand thenon-performers.
Otherwise, it will be difficult to overcome thepowerful
gravitational pull towards below par perform-ance. The long held
adages of the carrot and stick inmotivational techniques and spare
the rod and spoilthe child in folklore are still relevant in todays
world.
Perhaps we need to add to the 1Malaysia sloganof People First.
Performance Now, a Work First, Re-wards Later component. Or to
borrow from a formerUS presidents oft quoted Ask not what your
countrycan do for you but what you can do for your country.Give
diligently your due share of work before thinkingof rewards. We
need more examples of the HUKMsin our public delivery system. That
should be a usefulcase study for the chief secretary.
Cheong Sai FahAmpang
TODAY, the action by theMalaysian Anti-CorruptionCommission has
made the frontpage of every newspaper. Welldone but are we serious
aboutgoing after the big fish who havemilked the government?
Theconsolation that can be takenis that something is better
thannothing but then there are someimportant questions that oughtto
be answered. Are we seri-ous about fighting corruption,abuse and
misuse of power andfunds and moral decay? Do wecontinue making
statement afterstatement expecting people tochange? Do we go after
thosewith soiled hands without fearor favour? Do we seriously
wantto see that taxpayers money isused in a transparent mannerand
that those responsible areaccountable for their actions?
After years of exposing wrong-doings and commenting on
theactions of several, one tends tobelieve that making money
attaxpayers expense has becomea way of life. Some-times, you
wonderwhether it is worth
the effort and tellyourself: Nothingwill ever change. Ifyou
sense that thisscribe is wallowingin self-pity and de-pression, you
maybe right. It is gettingmore and morefrustrating readingand
learning aboutwrongdoers whoare still walkingour streets, hoping to
continue toexploit the perceived weaknessesin our system.
Such views are not based onhearsay or rumours. They arebased on
hard facts documents.As you sit back and take stock ofwhat had been
written in the past,you will understand why thissense of
hopelessness prevails.
Sometimes this is translated intoanger, most times despair.Does
this mean you give up
and turn your attention andwrite feel good pieces and carea damn
about whats happeningaround you? This thought hadcrossed my mind
several times,especially in the recent past. Asyou sit and re-visit
the storiesand the columns that had beenwritten over the years,
some-
remained silent. The globe-trotting
VIP wives in Selangorstill continue to flaunttheir designer
clothesand branded handbagsdespite their shenanigansbeing laid bare
at a publicinquiry. Is it not abuse ofpower?
The theft of landmeant for public ameni-ties in Bandar Utamamay
have lapsed into adistant memory in theminds of many; but each
time I drive past BU8 and the Tamilschool in the vicinity, I am
remindedof how political parties used their in-fluence and clout to
take away whatrightly belonged to the people. Dothese people have
any conscience?They now make public statementsas if they were
God-sent to cure theills of the people.
The former state governmentacquired a large plot of land near
SriDamansara for a song although it
was worth a small fortune. It waspurportedly for a graveyard.
Thestate then alienated the land tocronies of a politician, who in
turnflogged it for millions to a third party,a typical Ali Baba
operation.
The National Sports Councilwhich at one time or another hadRM350
million in the bank is nowunable to pay athletes. Does anyonebother
to find out where the moneywent and on the extravaganceof certain
officials who defendthemselves by saying: Saya yangmenurut
perintah?
What about the abuses thathave been highlighted in the
audi-tor-generals report every year? Hasanyone been hanged for
wrongdo-ings? May be, one or two ikan bilis,but what about the ikan
yuand thosewho gave the go-ahead? They arebeing promoted to higher
positionsand together come the perks stateor national awards.
Dear readers, over the past fewdays, I have asked myself: Have
Icome to the end of the road? Do I say
enough is enough and move on? Idont know but I am sure that
youcan understand my despair, angerand frustration over the
non-action.As I pen these last few words, theinevitable question
is: Will we everend up in the top 10 in TransparencyInternationals
Corruption Percep-tion Index?
I am no soothsayer or doomsayer.I am another journalist who
iscommitted to seeing transparencyand accountability at work. For
thebetter part of my career, I have beendoing just that. But having
said that,all I can say is that nothing will everchange unless our
leaders have thedetermination and political will tobring about a
radical set of normsand morals to be emulated by all
thecitizens.
Despair and hopelessness have beenbothering R. Nadeswaran for
the past
few days and he has decided to airhis frustrations. He can be
reached at:[email protected]
thing tells you that allis lost.
So, today for goodmeasure, I am takinga walk down memorylane to
remind thepowers-that-be thatthere are several out-standing
wrongdoingswhich ought to beattended to. The listis a long one
(forgetthe Port Klang FreeZone for a moment,though it will neverbe
forgotten) and I donot want to go through the agonyof digging into
the archives andcreating more heartache. Instead,these are issues
that enjoy top-of-the-mind recall:
Former Tourism MinisterDatuk Azalina Oth-mans excess bag-gage as
far as staff-
ing was concerned.She had 20 staffwhich contravenesthe Public
ServicesDepartment (PSD)sregulations limitingthe appointmentsto
only eight. It isalso in defiance of aTreasury circular
oncost-cutting and aus-terity. The ministersoffice had three
spe-
cial officers, five political officers,one research officer, six
informa-tion technology officers and fivesupport staff. Some
appointmentswere backdated to circumventcirculars from the PSD and
theTreasury and there was no properselection process as the
postswere not advertised.
The RM68 million disaster
called Paya Indah Wetlands stillbrings anger when you
discoverthat norms in business practiceswere not followed. There
wasonly one signatory to cheques.Yet, the former CEO of the
Malay-sian Wetlands Foundation, DrMuralee Menon, who was alsothe
former adviser to the cabinetcommittee on sports, and
formerdirectors Datuk Ahmad Taliband Nor Hisham Ismail have
CitizenNadesby R. Nadeswaran
[email protected]
Britainunveilshugeshake-up
for RBS,Lloydspg 15
It is gettingmore and more
frustrating readingand learning aboutwrongdoers whoare still
walking ourstreets, hoping tocontinue to exploitthe
perceivedweaknesses in oursystem.
