KUCHING, Aug 5: The Congress of Unions of Employees in the Public and Civil Services Malaysia (Cuepacs) Vice-President II Zainal Ismail is negotiating with Putrajaya to revise the Regional Allowance and the Regional Housing Allowance of civil servants due to some imbalances.
He said he had received complaints from civil servants in the state that at present, the rates of allowances depend on the scale of the salary, which is perceived as not fair, and the rate for Sarawakian and Sabahan civil servants posted to the Peninsula is lower than those from the Peninsula posted to the Borneon states.
“So now Cuepacs is coming up with a mechanism so that these allowances are to be revised. There has to be a ceiling rate across the board,” he said in his speech during the Sarawak Police Civilian Staff Union (Spocsu) assembly at the State Library near Petra Jaya here this morning.
Later after the assembly, he told reporters that many civil servants today, especially those on the front lines and in government enforcement agencies have to bear with the rising cost of living which could lead to stress and affect their work performance.
“They are facing stress because the ‘rate-for-job’ is imbalanced, including their allowances,” said Zainal.
He said Cuepacs will continuously negotiate with Putrajaya to ensure that these allowances would be revised as soon as possible.
“We don’t want a time frame. We want it to be given due attention and to be implemented or announced as soon as the coming National Budget 2020 announcement,” said Zainal.
On the same note, he also urged Putrajaya to also consider salary reviews for the civil servants because the last review was in 2012-2013.
Zainal said according to the Civil Service Act, salary reviews should be done once every three years, and therefore Putrajaya should give due consideration in reviewing the salaries of civil servants, especially those on the front lines and in enforcement agencies.
He also urged Putrajaya to review the time-based promotion duration as currently the set 15, 13 and 10 years per promotion is too long.
“We urge the federal government to look into this time-based promotion because 15, 13 and 10 years for one promotion is taking too long. Apart from the teachers who uses the 8-8-6-3 concept or one promotion after eight years, another after another eight years, after six years and after three years, for regular civil servants 15 years is too long.
“We urge the federal government to come up with a shorter duration so that a civil servant would be able to retire at the highest grade possible,” said Zainal. — DayakDaily
