8 - Malaysia's Civil Service Reform: Mahathir's Legacies and Abdullah's Challenges

Summary

Introduction

Since Malaysia's independence in 1957, administrative reform efforts in the country have been moving ahead at a rapid pace. Under Mahathir, such reform efforts have been further reinforced with much conviction as well as rhetoric. His administration picked up the new public management (NPM) paradigm. New civil service reform programmes, together with their problems, emerged in the mid-1990s amidst major political and economic transformations in the country.

When Abdullah Badawi was sworn in as the fifth prime minister of Malaysia in 2003, he inherited the weaknesses and strengths of the reform programmes as well as the intended and unintended consequences of Mahathir's relentless efforts in transforming the country. The perennial issues of performance, efficiency, control, and accountability (or the lack of) in the Malaysian civil service remain major challenges for Abdullah. He has pledged, after the landslide victory of the 11th general election, to take Malaysia towards “excellence, glory, and distinction”. The bureaucracy, as a tool of policy implementation, will be a major player in the process.

This chapter surveys the administrative reform initiatives in Malaysia, focusing, in particular, on developments during the Mahathir administration and the challenges that confront the Abdullah administration. It argues that both internal and external changes have forced the Malaysian administrative apparatus to adjust and respond rapidly in the Mahathir administration, and these forces will remain significant in the Abdullah administration. In addition, Abdullah's pledges to improve bureaucratic efficiency and minimising corruption would prove to be difficult to fulfil if entrenched and stubborn political and bureaucratic resistance are not removed.

Administrative Reforms: Malaysian Style

The Malaysian political elite's approach is consistent with the general belief that administrative reform is a prerequisite for significant growth on the development front. Civil service reforms — broadly defined “an organizational, instrumental, problem-related change of government and the public sector to meet environmental demands and require-ments” — were initiated by the United Malays’ National Organization (UMNO)-dominated Barisan Nasional (BN) government in the past 40 years.