COOPERATION OF POLITICIANS, CIVIL SERVANTS CRUCIAL FOR NATION'S VISION

KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 2 (Bernama) -- In a democratic governance, the
relationship between civil servants and politicians is crucial to encourage greater understanding and cooperation to attain national vision.

Foreign Minister Anifah Aman said both groups should be instrumental in being
genuine partners in making the public sector more efficient and effective to
achieve national goals.

"This calls for special consideration of the role and function of leadership in
the public service. It is time to put clarity into each of our roles (between
politicians and civil servants)," he said in a keynote address at the
'Leadership Development Helps Shape Up Future Directions' symposium here
Tuesday.

His speech was read by his deputy, Richard Riot Jaem.

However, Anifah said clarification of the two was not an easy task whereby,
politicians were becoming more professional in administration while civil
servants were becoming more politicised.

In Malaysia and many countries, implementation failures were often the biggest
and most significant political problems a government would face, he added.

He said, although many people thought that the remedy for a bad government was
handing over their activities to the private sector which would do a far more
excellent job, that was unnecessary as the government had a larger role to play.

Anifah said, in response to changing citizens' necessity, it was also about time
for the government to consider constitutional reforms to enable public service
to remain relevant and facilitate economic growth and the nation's overall
development.

"One way of equipping ourselves for the uncertain and volatile future is by
having the right human capital," he said.

The three-day international symposium was organised by the National
Institute of Public Administration and the Commonwealth Secretariat and attended by
30 participants from throughout the world.
-- BERNAMA