Senators urge Chief Secretary to intervene in Penang
By Yoges Palaniappan (Malaysian Insider)
KUALA LUMPUR, July 20 — Three Pakatan Rakyat (PR) senators have urged the Chief Secretary to the Government to solve the ongoing spat between Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng and state development officer (SDO) Nik Ali Nik Yunus.
Tunku Abdul Aziz Ibrahim, Datuk Mustafa Kamal Mohd Yusoff and Dr S. Ramakrishnan said the chief secretary “must remind civil servants that it is their duty to provide the best possible service to the state administration and rakyat”.
“In this case, the civil servant [Nik Ali] somehow feels that his loyalty is not to the people of Penang or the elected government, but to the federal government,” Tunku Aziz (picture) told reporters.
He and the others were commenting on the recent outburst by Nik Ali who said Lim had lowered the status of a chief minister by attacking an SDO”.
Nik Ali had also distributed a press statement condemning Lim for dragging him into the issue of alleged sand mining in Balik Pulau.
Pulau Betong assemblyman Muhamad Farid Saad claimed last week that illegal sand excavation was taking place at a plot in Kampung Kenanga which had been earmarked for a government polytechnic.
Lim had responded that it would be difficult for the state to probe the matter as he had not received co-operation from the state development office headed by Nik Ali.
Tunku Aziz stressed that civil service employees, particularly senior civil servants, must understand their role in the context of the state administration.
He said a civil service that was not neutral and took sides could not be expected to deliver efficiently.
“I think if this trend continues, it is going to cause a lot of problems particularly in those states which are now governed by Pakatan Rakyat,” he added.
Tunku Aziz also urged the civil service to remember that it was serving the rakyat through a mechanism which is the state government.
“A good servant must serve the state government faithfully and wholeheartedly because it is a duly-elected government with responsibility to serve the state,” he said, adding that it was wrong for a civil servant to act as an independent arbiter or dictator.
Mustafa agreed with Tunku Aziz, saying whether or not the civil service liked the state administration, it must serve the government of the day in the interest of the people.
“The chief minister of Penang is responsible for delivering to the state and the role of the state development officer, although he’s a federal-appointed civil servant, is to work alongside the chief minister,” he said.
“There must be mutual respect between civil servants and the state administration,” he added.
Ramakrishnan concurred and said Nik Ali “should not act like he was the federal-appointed alternate chief minister.”