Former economy minister Rafizi Ramli has encouraged Malaysians to “make fun” of sycophancy and unnecessary events in the civil service on social media, saying it may help eradicate the current culture of pompous practices.
Recalling his first day as a minister, he said he was surprised by the number of people waiting at his beck and call when he reported for work.
“What the heck are you guys doing here? There were a bunch of people there. And I was just going to my office,” he told a public forum in Kuala Lumpur today.
Rafizi said reformists would have to “peel back” the civil service culture “bit by bit” as the culture had been inculcated over the years.
“In the past, if ministers came to work and no one waited for them to give them directions, there would be a big scene. I hope more ministers, senior politicians or senior civil servants do away with these pompous and sometimes wasteful practices.
“I hope senior politicians in government make it very clear that we must do away with this,” Rafizi said.
Rafizi said the civil servants themselves should not be blamed, having been taught to behave as such.
“I think continuously making fun of (such practices) and highlighting them, especially now we have TikTok, and making sure they go viral, will get faster reactions from people in Putrajaya.
“Hopefully five, ten years down the line, we see less and less of this,” he said.
Rafizi said efforts by the government itself to streamline the civil service and cut down on unnecessary meetings or bureaucracy had faced resistance.
“Usually the resistance is really strong for fear of offending voters. Because if you close down one agency and there are 200 people there, they’ll be out of jobs, and then (things get) even worse if three of them actually have viral TikTok videos,” he said.
