LETTER | I would suggest the following to be considered and concentrated on as it will save a lot more money in long-term.
There have been many cases of personnel being on GLCs payrolls but not really working for the GLC on the instructions of higher-ups. This must be declared illegal and a criminal offence.
Stop the habit of having excessive board members for GLCs; I would say even 10 is already high.
The board should meet at least once a month, not just four times a year which is ridiculous when tasked with monitoring the performance of a GLC adequately.
On top of that retired or serving civil servants should not be board members if they don’t have adequate qualifications to monitor the GLC's business.
Board appointments should not be considered as retirement benefits or and an avenue to earn extra “pocket money”.
Watch out for the endless hiring of consultants by GLCs which can be a huge amount. No point paying a high salary for GLC officers and all they do is hire consultants to do their work.
GLCs and agencies should not stray from their original purpose. Prokhas which was originally formed to clear the balance of Danaharta properties is now a consultant to the government. Is this necessary?
Talent Corp which was set up to bring overseas talent home is now a one-stop centre for expatriate visa issuance and is also involved in placing local talents. Seriously? Why do we have the Immigration Department and the Human Resource Ministry for?
Bank Negara has embarked on a massive education hub, only because it has massive surplus being accumulated yearly. These surpluses should be passed on to the government consolidated accounts. Not build fancy building and hubs.
Bank Negara's job is to look after our nation's financial health and they should wholly concentrate on this, leave the educating to others. Does the Bank of England or the Federal Reserve Bank of the US undertake education or training activities?
Why are GLCs crowding out private businesses by sucking up all the grants that are meant for private businesses?
Why are GLCs involved in agriculture or education? Don’t we have enough agriculture bodies in the agriculture ministry and so on? Some past actions were done due to instructions from higher-ups but maybe its time to really sift through and cut off the unnecessary involvement.
Mostly all the GLCs have established their own “Yayasan” or foundations dishing out scholarships and undertaking Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) activities. This is superfluous, duplicitous and not the duty of GLCs. All these foundations have their own officers and their own cost.
GLCs should just handover every spare ringgit they have to the government in form of taxes and dividends and the government can then carry out CSR activities through the national budget and not ad hoc individual GLCs carrying it out.
For scholarships, I would suggest all government agencies, departments, companies and GLCs are centralised into a “Unit Pusat Universiti” type organisation where an applicant just make one application for scholarship and not multiple applications to each GLCs.
These will save a lot of money in the administration and set up of each GLC. All the GLCs have to do is pledge a certain amount to this central body annually and not waste funds having their own set up just to handle scholarships.
GLCs should also be barred from using their own profits/funds to sponsor their own staff for post-graduate or doctorate studies as a priority should only be for undergraduate studies. All post-graduate and doctorate funding should not be from the taxpayers.
The other area one can concentrate one is all the business trips these GLC personnel seem to be on. A quick scan of social media can quickly garner many postings of known GLC staff posting about this various trips of theirs. Without casting any negative aspersions on these trips, it is an area that can be curtailed.
Surely some of these trips can be replaced by conference calls? Maybe they should be a rule that government staff (including those of all agencies and GLCs) can only travel a maximum of so many days in a year on official business, the cap being 30 or 45 days maximum.
Many government bodies and entities have raked up massive surpluses either from their operations or from collections from the public such as Bank Negara, Socso, HRDF and the Securities Commissions.
In this matter, the proposal to merge EPF and Socso should be seriously considered as Soscso should return surplus funds to contributors and not hoard it just to buy buildings nobody else wants.
These organisations should be watched like a hawk by the Ministry of Finance and extraordinary surpluses requested to be remitted to pay off national debts. These funds are not for their staff to embark on some silly adventure of their fancy. Imagine how much funds the Treasury can collect by squeezing these “wealthy” government agencies or bodies.
Lastly, the latest craze is for GLCs and government agencies to set up their own overseas office. I would suggest all government and GLCs share a central location or building and this will better serve both Malaysia as well as those who wish to do business in Malaysia. A one-stop centre overseas will be both cost-effective as well as be better publicity for Malaysia.
Definitely, GLCs need more oversight, a better oversight but not interference from civil servants mandarins. To seek more interference on the excuse of excessive pay will be detrimental to national wealth and our economy. History has already proved it.
Maybe we can have an umbrella council of experienced and knowledgeable business, academic and experienced civil servants providing extra oversight on top of the existing boards. They can monitor and supervise and report to Parliament directly so that these GLCs can be enhanced.
The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.
