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PM Mahathir calls for more "lucrative salaries" in the private sector

Malaysia's Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad has said the government hopes to see more jobs with "lucrative salaries" available in the private sector, Bernama reported. This is to help reduce Malaysians' dependence on jobs in the public sector, for instance in the manufacturing sector.

In fact, he thinks there are currently too many civil servants in Malaysia. He said: "When I stepped down as Prime Minister, there were only 1 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: "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."

PM Mahathir also said the government could make use of information technology in order to reduce the number of civil servants in the public sector.

PM Mahathir mentioned this at a dialogue with Malaysian Armed Forces (MAF) officers and personnel yesterday (21 February), during his first visit to the Ministry of Defence as Prime Minister.

Photo / 123RF

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