PAD 252 Article Review 2 : 7 Priorities for civil servants

Article:

PUTRAJAYA: PRIME Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak yesterday listed seven areas for civil servants to focus on this year.

Speaking at the first monthly gathering of the Prime Minister’s Department this year, he urged them to ensure the 2013 Budget was implemented smoothly by focusing on the national transformation agenda, which had a direct impact on the people.This, he said, was in line with the budget’s theme of “Prospering the Nation, Ensuring Wellbeing of the People: Promises Fulfilled”.Describing 2012 as a successful year for the government, Najib told civil servants that this did not mean they could rest on their laurels as they still had to work hard for the country to achieve the status of a developed and highincome nation.“As a Malaysian race which aims for excellence, we must not be too comfortable or complacent even though we achieved many successes last year,” he said."I want 2013 to be a year where we can achieve more successes and, if possible, redouble efforts so that we can achieve bigger successes. Let us renew our resolution and determination for 2013." The six other priorities Najib emphasised involved strengthening national unity, managing the economy and distribution of wealth, implementing government initiatives like the Malaysia Education Blueprint and Rural and Urban Tansformation Centres, key performance indices for ministries and better delivery of services to the people.Najib said strengthening national unity using the 1Malaysia concept would ensure that all strata of society felt the government was fair, equitable and inclusive.Through continuous economic growth, the government could ensure national wealth was enjoyed by the majority of the people.Najib reminded civil servants that 2013 brought them closer to Vision 2020."We must enhance our competitiveness level as more initiatives will be announced this year, like the Malaysia Education Blueprint, which will have a huge impact on the future development of human capital."I hope to see a civil service that is more vibrant."Najib also commented on Malaysia's recent success in global rankings, with International Living, a monthly newsletter covering topics like retiring overseas and living abroad, ranking Malaysia among its top three retirement countries for this year."The focus of the survey was on value for money. This shows the world recognises our stability, peace and economic achievement."Present were Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin, Chief Secretary to the Government Datuk Seri Dr Ali Hamsa, as well as ministers and deputy ministers in the Prime Minister's Department.

Malaysian Prime Minister, Najib Tun Razak (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Read more: 7 priorities for civil servants - Top News - New Straits Times http://www.nst.com.my/top-news/7-priorities-for-civil-servants-1.197857#ixzz2mOUpqMX2

ARTICLE REVIEW

The article was a summary of the Prime Minister’s speech at the first monthly assembly of the Prime Minister’s Department early January 2013. To ensure the 2013 Budget, themed “Prospering the Nation, Ensuring Wellbeing of the People: Promises Fulfilled”, was implemented smoothly, Prime Minister entrusted seven priorities to the public servants to be focus on. The seven priorities are:

          i.            Implement efficiently 2013 budget,

         ii.            Strengthen national unity through 1 Malaysia concept,

       iii.            Manage economy for strong growth and fair distribution of wealth to people,

       iv.            Continue national transformation agenda,

  v.            Implement National Blue Ocean Strategy, Malaysia Education Blueprint, Rural and Urban Transformation Centres and 1 Malaysia For Youth,

       vi.            Ensure the key performance indicators for ministers and ministries are met, and

     vii.            Continue improving the government delivery system based on speed, accuracy and integrity.

The Prime Minister also urging civil servants to redouble efforts to obtain better output as also to enhance their competitiveness level.

ARTICLE RELATE TO QUALITY MANAGEMENT

The seven priorities entrusted by the Prime Minister contained the mean of TQM implementation in the public sector. The characteristics of TQM were shown in his speech. For instance, TQM refers to a continuous process that involves the whole organization, referring to the review above, Prime Minister urged government servant to continue improving the delivery system and continue on national transformation agenda. This continuous process involve all in the public sectors. The objectives of TQM such as to provide customer satisfaction and meeting customer expectations also presented in the article, for example, the civil servants are to manage economy for strong growth and fair distribution of wealth to people and to improve speed, accuracy and integrity in serving the people. Features of TQM are not lacked in the article too. The four important features which are objectives, focus, strategy and implementer can be picked from the article. The objective which is also the theme “Prospering the Nation, Ensuring Wellbeing of the People: Promises Fulfilled” ; the focus would be the plans of the government, such as 2013 Budget, 1 Malaysia Concept, KPIs for the ministries and customer(people)-supplier(public servants) relations;  strategy would refer to National Blue Ocean Strategy, Malaysia Education Blueprint, Rural and Urban Transformation Centres and 1 Malaysia For Youth, continuous improvement and total involvement of all public servants; while the implementer refers to the participation of all in the public sectors, from the ministers to every servants in the public sector who should work together to ensure the KPI for the ministries could be achieved. Besides that, the six out of seven principles of TQM in the public sector can also be found in the article. The top management support, which was given by Prime Minister, who personally attend the assembly, to deliver the speech and trust to the civil servants. Strategic quality planning which state the efficient implementation of 2013 Budget and successful Implementation of National Blue Ocean Strategy, Malaysia Education Blueprint, Rural and Urban Transformation Centres and 1 Malaysia For Youth. Those plans aimed to provide quality lifestyle to the people, for example the Rural and Urban Transformation Centres which serve as a hub of government to monitor the development of the rural areas and facilitates the federal government to develop rural areas, and ensure the development of the rural is in parallel to the development of the urban area. Customer focus refers to the public sector focusing on deliver better and prompts service to the customers, the people, distribute fairly the wealth to the people and 1Malaysia for Youth which focus on the young customers. Teamwork, though not mentioned forthrightly, but to improve the government delivery system and ensuring the KPI of the ministries could be achieved, all public servants must work together.  KPI for ministers and ministries is one of the performance measurement used by the government of Malaysia to measure the performance of each ministries. In addition, KPI also acting as an instrument of Quality Assurance whereby the KPI is an indicator of how well a ministry performed and along with the service provided to the people, how many people has benefit from it.