A Doctor in The House: A Memoir of Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad (51 page)

By and large, most of the other Ministers minded their own business and busied themselves with their own ministries. But from the time I had been Education Minister, I had always looked at the Cabinet’s responsibilities in totality. Too many suggestions, it now seemed, were coming from me. It was not that I was impatient, but I did have a strong sense that things were moving too slowly. I wanted quicker development to push the country forward. At this time Tun Hussein seemed overburdened with work and I once offered to take on anything he did not have time to handle. He looked at me and asked, “Don’t you have enough work to do?” Again, it was not a response I had expected. I have never felt my work to be a burden. Yet, in contrast to Tun Hussein’s characteristic deliberation and caution, I had so may ideas about what could be done to speed the development of Malaysia. But I was not able to act on them.

At the back of my mind, I always had to consider what Tun Hussein would say and how he would react to my ideas. I could not do things that I believed he would not like. When one is not in charge, one must learn to curb bright ideas and ambition. It is the politic thing to do.

Despite the lack of encouragement, I was able to introduce a number of initiatives as Deputy Prime Minister. There was the Malaysian Administrative Modernisation and Management Planning Unit, or MAMPU, which looked at ways to improve the Government’s efficiency and productivity. MAMPU was created as a unit under the Prime Minister’s Department, but I was able to guide it and make good use of it.

I had visited commercial offices and had noted that their layouts were changing, as senior officers no longer sat in rooms away from the rest of the staff. The staff had cubicles where the partitions were low enough for everyone to be able to see one another. In effect, because no one could hide, they had to be seen to be working. It seemed a much better way to organise an office and I thought there would be merit in bringing that style to government offices. When I became Prime Minister, one of the changes I made was to have a glass panel fitted into the door to my office. It served a dual purpose—anyone wanting to see me could see if I were free, working, or seeing someone. At the same time, the staff knew I could see them and they kept to schedule, with much fewer attempts to sneak off early.

I was also able to restructure salaries and the grade system for Government staff. Prior to this, salary adjustments had been made haphazardly, and allowances that were given distorted the pay structure. Ministers were liable to suggest pay rises under pressure by their staff because they wanted to appear generous, but these changes created great dissatisfaction and unhappiness among other civil servants of the same grade, whose salaries had not been adjusted. It also caused disgruntlement among those with higher salaries to start with, as they found that their juniors were earning almost the same salaries as they were.

What was needed to disentangle the mess was a comprehensive salary revision scheme that would apply to all government servants. It took me several months to devise one. First I had to establish a rationale for pay, and I eventually decided that a person’s salary must be sufficient to cover food, clothing and shelter for someone of his status in the Government. The higher up you go, the more you would spend on these three items, the higher the salary would be. Lower income groups also had to earn enough to pay for these essential needs. The other established principle was one of seniority: an employee is regarded as more senior based on qualifications, years of experience and level of responsibility, and this had to be reflected in his salary.

I also felt that employees of the same grade had to be paid the same salary, no matter which Ministry they were in. If Officer A is on par with Officer B in the salary scheme, when you push Officer A up, then you must do the same for B. Otherwise there would be endless complaints. But even if you do this, Officer C, who is below A and B, would wonder why he is now earning so much less than the other two. Because of all these inherent difficulties, and taking into account human feelings, changes in salaries must be total and the relative positions of the employees in the government hierarchy must be maintained.

However, even this system was not without its flaws. It remained difficult to adequately compensate services that had grown in importance. The technical services, for example, complained bitterly that their greater contribution in the age of technology had been ignored. But there was little that I could do. Even the Civil Service Unions were not willing to recommend better pay for the technicians and technical assistants. While drawing up the new comprehensive salary scheme I decided to do away with cost of living allowances, incorporating them into the salaries instead. This was a cost to the Government as it would be taken into consideration when calculating pensions. Once we had decided on the scheme, it could not be altered. Allowances to individuals could not be given out unless they could be truly justified. For example, we gave certain allowances to pilots because of the inherent risk of flying. We also gave special allowances to certain professional officers including doctors, because otherwise they would leave the service.

Today, salaries for civil servants are once again being adjusted on an ad hoc basis. The Government also gives cost of living allowances to those who live at least 25km away from KL. That has caused many to want to live out of the city so that they can claim the allowance. But there is really no rationale for this. Living in rural areas may mean spending on transportation but in urban areas, the cost of living is usually higher. If allowances are to be given, then everyone should be entitled. And unless a thorough cost of living study is undertaken, there in no justification for differentials in pay.

Another item I looked at was the pension scheme for retired civil servants. Calculating a retired Government servant’s pension was taking a very long time, up to three years in some cases—pensioners were actually dying before they even received their first payment. The delay was due to the lack of information on the pensioner’s service. He may, for example, have owed the Government some money, and the Pensions Department would want to deduct this from the monthly payment. The concern and conscientiousness was certainly to be admired, but the fact remained that the delays were hurting old and often sickly people.

To allow payments to be made on time, I asked the Pensions Department to get the employees to provide relevant information about themselves a year before they retired. Six months after that, they would have to provide additional information. This ensured that by the time they were pensioned off, the necessary data had already been processed and payment could be made immediately. In any case, I requested that full pensions be paid the first month after retirement. If there was money owing, it could be recovered by deducting future payments. The Government, I reasoned, would not be bankrupted because of the small sums involved in overpayment.

While I was working on this I thought of my father, who had drawn a pension of RM90 until he died in 1962, having been a pensioner for 30 years. People were now living longer and with the increasing cost of living, the amount they received as pension would not be sufficient for long. So I decided that pensions should be revised with each salary revision. I am proud of our pension scheme and believe it to be the best in the world. We have compared it to other schemes in developing and developed countries, and most of them do not bother with revisions. In many cases they also only last for 12 years after a person has retired, while our system makes sure there is a derivative pension that goes to the wife and the children until they reach a certain age. We want to take care of those who have served well and given their best years to the Government.

But we always remember that unlike most pension schemes in other countries, ours requires no contribution from the employee. It is the Government that must set aside the money. Some people take it for granted that there will always be money, but that is not so because the cost of living is always going up and life expectancy is increasing. That is why younger civil servants today can opt out of the pension scheme and go for the Employee’s Provident Fund, the contributory retirement scheme created for the private sector.

Even as I worked to push my ideas forward, I faced political threats that were rooted in events within UMNO in which I was directly involved. Unhappy with Tun Razak’s decision to engineer Tun Hussein’s return to the party, several UMNO leaders had accused Tun Razak of being influenced by alleged communists such as Tan Sri Abdullah Ahmad and Tan Sri A. Samad Ismail. It was believed by some that these people were leftists who influenced Tun Razak not to follow the Tunku’s pro-British and pro-Commonwealth policies.

The moment Tun Hussein took over as Prime Minister, the then Home Minister Tun Ghazali Shafie decided to arrest Samad, Abdullah Majid and Abdullah Ahmad, accusing them of being communists out to influence the leaders of UMNO. Tun Ghazali was a very powerful Home Affairs Minister and he cut a fearsome figure. People have asked me why I thought he may have done this. Some believe that it was to get back at Tun Hussein and myself as successful “upstarts” who had leapfrogged over others, including many loyal and long-serving veterans in the UMNO hierarchy. Perhaps Tun Ghazali held those he had arrested responsible for the eclipse of other powerful party hopefuls—himself included.

These former leftists were said to have influenced Tun Razak. I tried to argue against this idea, but Tun Hussein was more willing to listen to Tun Ghazali. Tun Hussein talked about how many communists had tortured and killed people, but neither Abdullah nor Samad had ever engaged in such activities. Despite my efforts, all Tun Hussein promised to do was to review the situation after six months.

Those who were arrested had been close to Tun Razak, who had liked to surround himself with younger people, myself included, and discuss issues with them. Tun Ghazali had not been one of those people. I myself would have been arrested had I not been Deputy Prime Minister. The effect of these arrests was chilling, and they cast suspicion on Tun Hussein and me for harbouring communists.

After six months, I spoke to Tun Hussein to try and secure the men’s release but once again he refused, saying that Abdullah Ahmad would likely be attacked by soldiers for being a communist. I did not believe our soldiers would behave that way, but in the end, these men remained under detention. When I became Prime Minister, I ordered their release. I do not think this made Tun Hussein happy at all. Certainly he became even unhappier when Harun was pardoned.

Tun Ghazali did not stop at trying to associate me with alleged communists. Just days before I became Prime Minister, Tun Hussein came to my office—incidentally, for the first time—to tell me that my political secretary, Siddiq Ghouse, was going to be arrested for being a spy for the Soviet Union’s KGB. Tun Ghazali, he said, would show me the evidence. Officers from the Special Branch soon arrived and showed me pictures of Siddiq allegedly meeting with a representative of the Singapore High Commission. I do not remember seeing any pictures of KGB agents.

I could have objected to the allegations. I had never suspected Siddiq of anything; indeed he seemed like a very ordinary person. But neither did I know for sure that he was not involved in spying. Siddiq was detained for almost two years. Having an alleged KGB spy work in my office could have been held against me. However, these incidents did not undermine my political career as they could have, had I, or rather my political views and commitments, not been better known. Within the party, I was still seen as a nationalist who struggled on behalf of the Malays and that lent me a certain amount of protection. Ironically, in the past, this reputation worked against me among the non-Malays, who had always regarded me with suspicion. Now, it was my armour against baseless accusations among Malays.

Still, I was not about to let non-Malay uneasiness fester and as Deputy Prime Minister, I think I was able to gradually gain their confidence. With the profile that I had, I could finally show them that while I was pro-Malay, it did not mean I was against the other ethnic communities. It was just that I firmly believed elevating the Malays’ economic wealth would be good for them as a community, and the country as a whole. Spreading the wealth could only lead to a healthier economic future.

I began receiving invitations to talk to members of the Chinese Chambers of Commerce, and groups of Chinese educationists. My Chinese colleagues in the Cabinet also took the trouble to reassure their constituents that I was not anti-Chinese. It became clear to most of my detractors that I was doing nothing to take away the wealth of the Chinese. In fact, the increased foreign investments I was bringing into the country as Minister of International Trade and Industry boosted the activities of Chinese businessmen.

Meanwhile, I also looked to strengthening my position in UMNO. When Tun Razak died, Tun Hussein became acting President of the party. But as he still held the substantive post of Deputy President, I could only remain Vice-President until party elections were next held. Tradition qualified me as a candidate and I was fortunately unchallenged when I submitted my name for the Deputy President’s post in September 1978.

Almost nine years had passed since I had been expelled from the party. While I had harboured hopes of returning to UMNO during my years of political exile, I had never imagined that I would rise to the second highest position within the party less than a decade after my expulsion. When I stepped back to look at myself then, I was amazed at how quickly I was moving up, overtaking several senior politicians along the way. I put it down to hard work and good luck. I did not know then that more changes were in store for me, and that they would take place just a few short years later.

ENDNOTES

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] Historians believe that Sri Vijaya was a great maritime kingdom that was situated in southeast Sumatra and lasted between the seventh and thirteenth centuries.