BANGKOK, Oct 25 — Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad has admitted today that the civil service under the Pakatan Harapan administration is now “not as efficient”, explaining that it is currently manned by more junior staff members.
The prime minister said the situation was the result of their superiors being removed for allegedly colluding with the previous Barisan Nasional (BN) government, and their purported involvement with corruption.
“Some of the government senior officers were blatantly campaigning for BN. They were even wearing the blue shirt.
“They were overseeing the voting and all that. They were in fact campaigning for Datuk Seri Najib, and this poses a problem for us,” he told a lunch dialogue with the Malaysian diaspora here.
Dr Mahathir suggested that those who blatantly supported BN cannot be retained in the government, accusing them of still holding loyalty to his predecessor Datuk Seri Najib Razak.
“Besides that, they committed a lot of wrongdoings. Like stealing money and corruption,” he claimed.
“So we have got rid of many of them. So the government now is staffed by very junior people and junior people naturally are not as efficient as the senior people.”
He also lamented that his government however has no other options, and will have to now restructure the government system.
“But we have no choice. We have to employ them and because of that, we have to work harder. The elected government has to oversee that everything is done as instructed,” he added.
Dr Mahathir is on a two-day official visit to Thailand, and will return later today.
