KUALA LUMPUR: Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad said today the government desires to have more jobs with lucrative salaries made available in the private sector, such as the manufacturing sector, to reduce the people’s dependence on public sector jobs.
“That’s why we have to develop the manufacturing sector to enable more people to shift from government jobs to those in the private sector to enhance their capacity to achieve higher yields than ordinary civil servants,” said the Prime Minister.
He spoke at a dialogue with Malaysian Armed Forces (MAF) officers and personnel, during his maiden visit to the Defence Ministry today as the seventh prime minister.
Dr Mahathir said the use of information technology could also help the government reduce the number of civil servants.
He said there were currently 1.7 million Malaysians employed in the public service, and added that the number was too large and had to be reduced.
“When I stepped down as the (fourth) prime minister (in 2003), there were only one million civil servants. Now, there are 1.7 million, an additional 700,000. I think the number of civil servants is too large and has to be reduced,” he added. — Bernama
