GEORGE TOWN, Aug 12 ― Having overcome a resistant civil service in his first term, Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng still sees the group as his toughest challenge. But instead of just winning them over, this time he wants to turn them into a winning team.

When Pakatan Rakyat first came to power in 2008, Lim faced — and still faces — unco-operative civil servants, many of whom are loyal to the previous Barisan Nasional (BN) administration.

In response, Lim introduced a Competency, Accountability and Transparency (CAT) policy to “clean up” the civil service while employing the “shame and talk” method on recalcitrant civil servants.

He also rolled out the Integrity Award for corruption whistleblowers and enforced open tenders across the board to reduce the likelihood of graft in the awards process.

“Today, Penang has the ‘best civil service’ in the country but that still doesn’t speak much because our civil service needs a lot more effort to make them understand that they have to produce results,” he said in an interview with The Malay Mail Online recently.

This year, the Penang Island Municipal Council (MPPP) was awarded the “Best Municipality Award” by the Europe Business Assembly (EBA), a UK-based independent corporation for development and management of economic, social and humanitarian collaboration.

EBA also named MPPP president Datuk Patahiyah Ismail as its “Best Municipal Manager”.

Lim pointed out that other state agencies and departments were regularly rated four stars out of five under the benchmarking system introduced by Putrajaya for all government departments.

One such agency, the Penang Development Corporation (PDC), gained a four-star rating for financial management for four consecutive years (2008-2011); the Auditor-General’s Report also previously rated the performance of some state agencies as “excellent”.

“We are the first state to submit our financial reports early for five consecutive years already,” an enthused Lim added.

The DAP secretary-general is known for his no-nonsense approach in ensuring the civil service is corruption-free at all levels, and leads the way by requiring his state executive councillors to publicly declare their assets; he also banned their family members from conducting any business with the state.

Lim says Penang has the ‘best civil service’ in the country.

For the Ayer Putih state assemblyman, there is no compromise when it comes to clean governance. Anyone suspected to be on the take must undergo an inquiry. If there is sufficient proof, the person will be handed over to the authorities for further action.

“We made sure there are no leakages, no hanky-panky, no misappropriation and made sure we are clean, and we have roughly achieved that, that’s why we have all these surpluses,” he said.

Having achieved a clean administration, Lim is now chasing a lean one by introducing “outcome-based” governance instead of the traditional “budget-based” approach.

“The budget-based administration may mean everything is clean but we also don’t want them to spend money for the sake of spending money so we now want them to be result-oriented,” he said.

Lim also hoped the result-oriented focus will free his administration of the morasses of bureaucracy.

“We want to do things quickly and we want decisions to be made fast; it must be today, now, and not tomorrow,” Lim said.

Convinced of the plan’s merits, all that remains is for Lim to get the civil service to buy into the new approach. But this was easier said than done when the public workers are so used to a different mindset, Lim said.

Still, the Bagan MP said things have come a long way since 2008.

“It has improved but sometimes we have problems and issues that we need to slowly overcome and sometimes, they have to either come over or go over,” he said.

Touching briefly on the decrease in integrity ratings for Penang’s civil service, Lim argued that the aggregate score for both federal and state agencies meant it did not accurately convey how well each was doing.

“I was told that the rating included the federal agencies and the whole rating was dragged down by the federal agencies so that’s why I have asked for another study to be made based only on state agencies,” he said.

State agencies include departments directly under the state administration such as both local councils, PDC and George Town World Heritage Incorporated; federal agencies include departments under Putrajaya’s purview, such as the Drainage and Irrigation Department, Road and Transport Department and the police.

And despite his eagerness for fast results, Lim was cognisant of the need to allow the civil service time to retool and adapt to the new way of doing things.

This meant there must be continuous effort to make them better, to make them responsive to public needs, to make sure they deliver and to make them goal-oriented and productive, he added.

It all seems a tall order, especially when Lim offers no specific incentives for civil servants to step up. Yet Lim remains confident that while there is no carrot, the proverbial stick should suffice.

“If they don’t co-operate or perform, we can ‘shame them’ by talking to them and they are mostly okay, they will try their best so there’s that,” he said.

The Penang Bridge is one of the iconic symbols of Penang where the people are looking forward to a corruption-free administration under the Pakatan Rakyat government.