KOTA KINABALU, April 18 — The Sabah state government is not in a rush to fill up 4,000 vacancies in the state’s civil service as it is focusing on efficiency, Chief Minister Datuk Seri Mohd Shafie Apdal said today.
Shafie told the House that Sabah is currently among the highest in emolument spending in the country at RM1 billion per year and a reduction of the civil service would not affect its existing force.
“For the last five years since 2015, there was a 6.48 percent reduction of vacancies filled up in various grades. Hiring will only be considered for those critical and able to generate revenues for the state.
“We will also employ trade-off of vacancies which are no longer relevant to allow positions formed for more strategic and critical ones especially in management and professional group,” he said in reply to Klias assemblyman Datuk Isnin Aliasnih, who asked what steps the government was taking to reduce staff.
“The requirement of absorbing part-time staff as permanent staff had also been limited to only skilled and expert areas. But this will depend on whether there are any posts being left vacant,” he said.
Shafie said that although the state has not been hiring to capacity, there has been no retrenchment of or shortening of service period for civil servants.
The state currently has 21,000 state public servants at present out of the 25,000 posts available.
He said based on existing initiatives, the government has seen a drop of 6.48 per cent in hiring in all grades between 2015 and 2019.
