This is the statement made by Deputy Minister Murugiah. It seems the percentage increased since from 2008, but at a meager 9% for the Chinese and 4% for the Indians. This means 58.3% of 1,559 Chinese and 42.7% of 1833 Indians have been hired in 2010 (up to June 15).

Is an increase of 9% or 4% over two years something to be proud of? At this rate, when can the civil service be on a more balanced ratio?

But wait, the statistics for 2008 was 49.2% out of 4,648 Chinese and 38.8 per cent of the 6,106 Indian candidates interviewed were hired.

Now, can anyone who is expert in Maths tell me which is bigger:

58.3% of 1,559 or 49.2% of 4,648?

42.7% of 1,833 or 38.8% of 6,106?

I believe elementary division is taught in primary school.

I wonder whose head is going to roll for making the Deputy Minister seem so [fill in the blanks].

Putrajaya moved to quell criticisms today that the civil service was dominated by one race, claiming there was an increase in non-Bumiputera government servants since 2008.

Deputy Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Senator Datuk T. Murugiah told a press conference in Parliament today that it was not true that the government only focussed on hiring Bumiputeras into the civil service.

“People always criticise us for hiring only those from one race to work in the service but it is not true. The percentage of non-Bumiputeras hired by the Public Service Commission has increased in the past few years,” he said.

Murugiah explained that 58.2 per cent of the 1,559 Chinese job applicants interviewed for posts in the service were hired by the commission as of June 15 this year.

The number of Chinese employed to date, he added, had seen an increase of nine per cent as compared to 2008.

“There were only 49.2 per cent of Chinese applicants chosen out of the 4,648 who applied. If there are many applicants from one particular race, we will look at the number of applications, their qualifications and their presentations during their interviews.

“We have many applicants but they may not make the screening process due to their qualifications… they have to comply to the set of rules and regulations,” he said.

He added that the applicants were shortlisted by a computer, which wa programmed to filter through applicants according to their qualifications.

“There is no bias there. All races are given opportunity for top management positions. There is no quota system,” he stressed.

Murugiah added that for the Indian applicants, the commission had hired 42.7 per cent of the 1,833 who were interviewed this year.

This, he said, was higher than in 2008 when only 38.8 per cent of the 6,106 interviewed were hired.

But, wait till you read this statement from Minister Koh Tsu Koon which seems to indicate another set of figures (article on 27 August 2010):

Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Tan Sri Dr Koh Tsu Koon said the Public Services Commission (PSC) received 25,789 applications from the Chinese last year compared with 12,872 in 2007.

Koh said the appointments offered by PSC to the Chinese during that period also rose by almost 100 per cent — 2,600 appointed as civil servants last year compared with 1,323 in 2007.

He said statistics as at June this year showed that Malaysia had 1.29 million civil servants, with Malays making up 77 per cent, followed by Sabah and Sarawak Bumiputeras at 8.7 per cent, Chinese (six per cent), Indians (four per cent) and others (4.3 per cent).

Let’s take an average  increase of 2,600 Chinese staff in year, and if you want to increase the 6 percent representation to 20%, how long would it take? Assuming number of civil servants will be 1.3 million.  That would be increase from 77,400 to 260,000 which is 182,600 new staff.  Assuming an unrealistic assumption of no Chinese staff retiring or perishing while in service, it would take another 70 years to reach the target.

Let’s take Murugiah’s figure from 2008 that about 2300 Indians are hired. Same scenario: assume the civil servants are to remain at 1.3 million, no Indian staff retiring or perishing in duty, and we want to increase the 4% (51,600 out of 1.29 million) to 10% (130,000 out of 1.3 million). That’s an increase of 78,400 and would take 34 years to reach.

Obviously, its nearly impossible to have the target ratios within this century. You can’t create new posts since the civil service is too big for the population, and you can’t remove current staff from the high percentage group and give the place to the lower percentage groups. Some sort of “affirmative action” for the minority groups can be proposed, but it won’t be acceptable to some quarters.

• Previous Entry: the PMR History paper question on vernacular school
• Next Entry: Budget 2011