Malaysia Scraps Unpopular Pay Hike Plan For Top Government Officials

09.03.2012

Malaysia has scrapped a proposed government wage scheme that gave top officials hefty pay rises, state news agency Bernama said on Thursday, as Prime Minister Najib Razak tries to shore up support ahead of elections widely expected this year.
Najib told a meeting of civil servants in Malaysia’s administrative capital Putrajaya that the government will set up a commission to improve the wage system, the news agency said.
The move appears aimed at placating lower-ranked government workers, who make up the majority of the 1.4 million people in the civil service and represent a key support base for Najib’s ruling National Front coalition. Najib is fighting to reverse a dismal election showing in 2008, when the ruling coalition lost its two-thirds parliamentary majority for the first time.
“I hope this decision will remove the unhappiness felt by the civil servants in the various pay grades,” Najib was quoted as saying by Bernama.
Najib needs to win back support from disillusioned ethnic Chinese and Indians while holding onto votes from the majority Malays in the elections, which must be held by April 2013 but are expected earlier. Ethnic Malays, who make up nearly half of the Southeast Asian country’s population of 28 million people, are favored under a decades-old affirmative action policy and hold most of the jobs in the civil service.
Public sector unions and the opposition had protested against the pay proposal, arguing it would have rewarded top officials like the attorney general with salaries of up 80,000 ringgit ($26,400) a month while cleaners would have gotten less than a 10 ringgit wage hike. Najib suspended the plan in January and set up a task force of senior government officials and unions to review it.