KUALA LUMPUR, March 27 — The government’s efforts to increase civil service efficiency will begin by eliminating unfilled positions, Deputy Minister in the Prime Minister Office Md Farid Md Rafik said in Parliament today.

He explained that there were 1.7 million jobs in the public sector that were 94 per cent filled by the over 1.6 million existing civil servants.

"When we say we want to reduce in stages the number of civil service personnel, this involves unfiled government post,” he said when stressing that jobs will not be lost as part of the optimisation drive.

He also said the government was mindful not to affect the quality of service in the initiative.

Malaysia has among the highest civil servant to population ratios in the world, leading to views that the sector was "bloated”.

However, the figure also includes the country’s law enforcement and security personnel as well as public educators, which are customarily not counted as civil servants by other countries.

Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad this month suggested that parts of the civil service could be corporatised similarly to Telekom Malaysia in the 1980s to lower its size.