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rishi · Senior Member Joined: 06 Mar 2008 Posts: 620

Subject: You walk the talk first
Musings By MARINA MAHATHIR
Wednesday June 18, 2008

The Government wants us to change our lifestyles to cope withinflation. It is easier said than done since most people werehavingit difficult even before the hikes. The Government must first setanexample by doing things it should have done long ago. WITH the recent hike in fuel prices and the Government'sexhortationsfor us to change our lifestyles in order to cope, may I provideheresome suggestions for the Government and those who work for it to"share our burden".

1. Stop having meetings, especially out at resorts, far enoughawayto be able to claim transport allowances. Have online meetingsinstead or teleconferences. Use Skype or chat.

2. No need to order special pens, bags, T-shirts, notepads andothergoodies for those same meetings.

3. No need to order kuih for mid-morning or teatime meetings ingovernment offices, or nasi briyani lunches for those meetingsthathappen to end just at lunchtime.

4. Cancel all trips for government servants to conferencesoverseasunless they return with full reports of what they did there, whotheymet and what they learnt and how they mean to apply what theylearntat home. Ask them to do presentations to colleagues who did notgetto go, on the most interesting and important papers that theyread.

5. Scrutinise invoices for contracts to make sure they are trulyreflective of what those projects or supplies cost.

6. Stop elaborate launches for government programmes. Inparticular,stop the buying of souvenirs, special batik shirts, corsages,bouquets and caps.

7. Make all civil servants and politicians travel economy class.Thatmeans really travelling at the back of the plane and not buyingfullfare economy class tickets that allow them to be upgraded toBusinessClass.

8. Stop having the full complement of police escorts to cut downonpetrol costs. If they need to be somewhere by a certain time,startearlier like the rest of us. Wouldn't be a bad thing for them toalsoexperience a traffic jam.

9. Once a week (or more), have ministers use public transport sotheyknow what everyone else has to suffer. This might provide themwiththe incentive to improve them.

10. Once a week, let ministers go to a market to buy food fortheirfamilies with instructions to not spend more than RM100.

11. Get ministers to carpool. They might get more work done justbybeing able to talk to each other to see what can be coordinatedbetween their ministries. For instance, the Ministers of HealthandWomen could discuss what to do about women's health issues in thecaron the way to work. Maybe have a secretary to travel in the frontseat t take down notes o what was discussed. B the time theygetto their offices, things can get implemented.

12. Once a month, get civil servants to work with onedisadvantagedgroup in order to be better able to appreciate their problems. Itcould be blind people one month, hearing disabled people the next,orang asli the following month and people living with HIV/AIDSafterthat. We could start buddy systems which pair one civil servant with onedisadvantaged person and at the end of it, ask each pair to makerecommendations on how to make life better for each other. Thismightget rid of the problem of desk jockeys, people who never strayveryfar from their desks yet make policies for people they knownothingabout.

13. Have PA systems that shout out the name of the officers whohaveto serve people at government offices so that people get theservicesthey came for and don't have to keep coming back just because theofficer was out having coffee. No counter should be left unmanned for more than five minutesbeforethe officer is paged to go back to their stations. This should cutdown waiting time for the public and save them transport costs inhaving to keep returning just to get one thing done.

14. Government officers who lose people's files should be finedandhave their names publicised for being careless and causinginconvenience to the public. Instead of making the public traveltotheir offices several times to deal with their problems, theyshouldtravel to go see their client and deal with it right there andthen. And every officer who goes out of the office should be given areasonable time to get his work done after which he is expectedbackin office so he doesn't waste time doing something else.

15. And newspapers should save paper by reporting real news ratherthan non-news that they carry, particularly nonsensical utterancesbypoliticians. As they say, we need to do this all together in order to make adifference. So if the Government and politicians make theselifestylechanges, I will do my part and change mine.

Thank You.