Monday, January 18

Strange, but true

Last Friday morning 15 Jan 2010, Nicholas Mujah, Secretary General of Sarawak Dayak Iban Association (SADIA) rang up the State Election Office asking for Registration Forms to register voters. He spoke to a senior officer and told him that he wanted some forms. For the past three months the Election Office has exhausted all its forms, and was still waiting for more to come from Kuala Lumpur.

The registration of voters is now on.

When Mujah made an enquiry, the officer asked Mujah which party he belonged to, who he was and what race was he. The questions placed Mujah in an awkward position. Mujah had to lie and said that he was from Keadilan. And he told Mujah he could not give unless he registered his name with the Commission. Mujah told him that his name should be in the list.

Then he was surprised to know that Mujah has been authorized by the Commission to register voters State-wide and is being paid one ringgit per voter. At that instant, he told Mujah to come and collect the forms.

When Mujah and a friend arrived at the Office, he handed more than 500 forms duly filled to a lady clerk. In return, Mujah asked for the forms from the clerk who said: “Sik ada form, belum datang dari Kuala Lumpur.”

“Benar sik ada form?” Mujah asked.

“Benar sik ada form” she replied.

And Mujah said he was going to ask for the third time. “Benar sik ada form?”

“Benar sik ada form; sik aku bula”, she replied.

Mujah said: “I have just spoken to a senior officer and asked me to come and collect the forms. Now you told me there are no forms.”

When Mujah tried to see the officer and only then she told him to wait and brought some bundles of forms. She wanted to give Mujah one bundle of 100 forms, but Mujah told her to give him 5 bundles.

Two or three things I can surmise from the incident at the office of the Election Commission. Firstly, when Mujah mentioned Keadilan, the officer immediately asked Mujah to collect the forms. My questions are: Is the officer pro-Keadilan? And why race was being asked?

And with the lady clerk, she obviously did not want Mujah to have the forms and this is a common reflection of the attitude of civil servants nowadays towards the public especially to the people who come from the rural areas. And if Mujah was not persistent, he would not be given the forms.

Thirdly, the absence of Dayak officers or clerks in any government department nowadays is a cause for concern.

Is this not part of discrimination? – The Broken Shield

Source: www.thebrokenshield.blogspot.com

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Nothing new in your observations.Question is .. why are you and the under represented people going to do about it?Your wakil rakyat have been sitting so long on this I think it has become part of their anatomy!Good luck to you.

Obelisk.

Apai Semalau said...

If the civil service's lowest ranking clerk can lie between her teeth then it is only appropriate that a complaint should be lodged with her superior! If she gets away with this once, she'll repeat the same again in future. Why in the first place is she hogging the forms? Maybe she is waiting for the 10% "kopi O" after-all, $1.00 is paid for every form submitted. Typical culture of most civil service departments of "you scratch my back and I do like wise?". Time to put a stop to this nonsense.
On the other hand, can her arrogance speaks volume of the poisonous "ketuanan malayu" mentality sourced from racist UMNO. Once again that's nothing strange because Sarawak natives are termed as "others" equivalent to the "pendatang". That being the case, dayaks are sidelined in the civil service sectors because our race does not start with the prefix "m" and ends with"u"! Thus some race are more equal than others. Time to wake up to realities all dayaks.

Branking Kilau said...

The civil service should continue playing its role as the backbone of the federal and state government in the implementation of policies, improving their services to the people, and to adhere to the ethics and professionalism governing the civil service without being influenced by any political sentiment although they are free to support any political party.

The attitudes shown by the officers in the state Election office do not reflect their basic functions and responsibilities as a civil servant who must give clear, accurate, truthful and at times forceful advice to the public.

A government servant should realise that he is adhered to the rules and regulations as stipulated in the General Orders and he could be disciplinary dealt with if he purposely neglects his duties, or does not work in conformity with General Orders and Administrative Instructions.

All government agencies should give priority to the people-friendly approach in implementing their commitment to the people that the government had coined the slogan `People First, Performance Now.

adbdin said...

Hahahahaha.............nampaknya dia ni baru pernah berurusan dengan jabatan dan agensi kerajaan.

Baik you buat lawatan ke lebih banyak lagi jabatan kerajaan di Sarawak dan rasakan penangan dari kakitangan yang tak berkhemah dan kurang ajar.

Dahlah makan gaji dari duit rakyat berlagak pulak tiap tiap kali melayan orang awam.

Anonymous said...

our civil service is one of the lousiest in the world becos these servants are employed based on race. so you see that is why they never like meritocracy. most of the dept are over staffed and some just do nothing at all.check the income tax dept,the epf,national registration,immigration,custom, jpj etc. You walk into any of these office and you can see some never turn up for work.

At one time I was at the immigration doing my son's passport and I can see staff at the counter eating tip-bits,chatting and giggling. They are not interested to do their jobs properly.

Also at the company registration office I was surprised after to find my name wrongly type and when I found out after 1 week,I went and confront the officer and she just pretend nothing has happen.

Basically all these civil service is a shame to this country.

Anonymous said...

dont blame the clerk and dont complain about only one race as civil servant. that is what the majority dayaks want. they voted for the goverment of the day rite??? so dont complain la... .we are nothing now, only during election times we got power to do something....