Understandably, Sarawak, which has the land surface almost as big as Peninsular Malaysia, can be considered as the most difficult State to develop. But the fact that it has been able to leap forward from the backwater lane of development to one of the fastest growing economies in the country, speaks volume of the kind of government and the Civil Service that it has been blessed to have since Independence. The overall picture is to build a new and prosperous Sarawak, which has all the potentials to become the richest state in the country by the year 2030. The task should be viewed as something within the ability of people, members of the civil service in particular to undertake provided they retain their eagerness to serve with compassion and love for the people.
Understandably every member of the civil service, which is a huge organization, has important roles to play in the administration and development of the State and country. This alone demands that officers, on individual basis, must endeavor to upgrade his or her capability and capacity to ensure the success of the overall efforts to develop the state and country. In the status quo administration, which the country inherited from the British Colonial administration, members of the civil service did not have to adjust themselves to changes as there were little or no changes in the system. Then the people did not have high expectation and generally they were contented with the little things that they had in life.
The State has more rivers and peat soil than anywhere else in Malaysia; the peat soil is soft for building and very discriminating in accepting agriculture. The transportation is very challenging; whatever the Government wants to do, it has got to be amended, like having travelling dispensaries, flying doctors service and other services to provide basic health care services to the people in the far flung areas of the State.
Though the State is big, it has got very small population. It has only now 2.5 million people now. Many places like Klang Valley with 2.5 million people are much smaller than Sarawak; such places are easy to develop. The 2.5 million people of Sarawak are scattered all over the places, some in the mountains, along the rivers and coastal areas and some of course in towns, which are quite good. It is even more challenging as more than 60% of the 5,000 settlements have less than 50 families per settlement. These settlements are scattered over wide areas and far apart. The normal way of building roads to connect the settlements will take 100 years to do so.
Obviously, the challenge of development must be faced by everybody. It is a marriage between the knowledge of development with the civil servants and the involvement of the people in the process. However, the people cannot be involved in the process unless they can understand its aims and objectives and how it will benefit them.
Basically, the challenge of development is not something that can be translated into the civil service system and be implemented by procedures instantaneously. The people cannot be involved in development if they do not understand half of the things that they are required to do. In other words, the how with civil servants and the response of the people must be combined in the process of development.
The new structure of the economy requires new ways of doing things and greater sophistication of the machinery of the government. The government transformation plan (GTP) has the objective to combat corrupt practices, reduce incidences of crimes, improve the quality of education and upgrade the transportation system in the State and country. Basically, the GTP aims to upgrade the socio-economic life of the people. For this reason, members of the Civil Service must endeavor to reinvent themselves to conform to the desire of the people to be pushed further up in pursuit for greater progress and advancement.
After Independence, it was clear that the most important agenda of the State government was to initiate development and change the way of life of the people. During the hearings of Cobbold Commission, which had been tasked to ascertain the wishes of the people in Sarawak and Sabah on the formation of Malaysia, one dominant thing was clear; everybody wanted progress and development. They wanted Sarawak to be transformed into a progressive and prosperous state so that the new generation could have better lives than them. A lot of these people, though they had not been educated well, had got very strong desire for change through development and Merdeka should bring them a better way of life. During the debates on the 1st Malaysia Plan, the opposition spoke like backbenchers.
They were one with the government; they gave their full co-operation to make sure that the dreams of the people for better future would be implemented. SUPP, then in the Opposition, shared with the State Government many common dreams because they cared for the people. All politicians had the common desire to improve the livelihood of the people.
Chief Minister, Pehin Sri Haji Abdul Taib Mahmud, in his speech during the civil service Day gathering last Monday, says one of the greatest challenges of development administration is to reach out to people with some basic ideas on how they relate to the process of development. Admittedly, it is the most difficult function of development administration. But the question is how to get the people to respond to the agenda of development if civil servants as implementers cannot convey to them the essence of what they should do and how they will benefit from it in the process.
He suggests from time to time Dos, SAOs should take time, not during office hours, to sit in coffee shops and talk with the ordinary people, including those who have just come from the Ulu. That should enrich their experience much more than reading books on public administration. They must appreciate that simplicity is one of the greatest links with the people.
He attributes some of the improvements in the Civil Service to initiatives and efforts of members, who have been using their knowledge in designing systems that are flexible enough to enable them to grow from time to time. As a consequence, the civil service has become quite well structured but still open to adaptation. That is the special feature of the State Civil service that has got a very strong symbiotic relationship between the people and the civil service.
The root can be traced back 100 years ago as then Sarawak had got very small population scattered all over a wide area to necessitate civil servants mainly administrative offices including expatriates to spend half of their times visiting the gave opportunities for the officers to understand the people. The practices must be continued as they have already become assets to the civil service. Over the years, a number of systems and procedures have been introduced to the Civil Service. Initially some of the technical terms were strange to the members as some of the terminologies were precise and analytical in identifying various processes and steps to be undertaken to monitor progress and results of projects being carried out for the people.
Essentially, continuous steps have to be taken to re-energize the civil service to ensure that the members will continue to be energetic and caring in doing whatever jobs they have been assigned to do for the people. That is the most important thing as the bottom line is that they must give efficient service to the people and country. The discipline requires them to retain the common sense in forging the relationship with the people.
However, the overall challenges are not formidable provided members of the Civil service can continue to be flexible and adaptable to the demands of their services. For example, they must be able to respond in more flexible and adaptable ways in providing services in areas identified under National Key Result Areas or NKRA.
Generally, they must understand the overall picture of the development as the State embarks on the migration from the present medium income structure of the economy to that of High Income from next year towards achieving the status of a developed nation towards the year 2020 and beyond.
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