Civil servants in Malaysia must learn good manners and smile more in a campaign to change their image of being rude and lazy, and government officials plan to monitor their progress by posing as members of the public, a report said yesterday.
The training courses for the 850,000-strong civil service are aimed at making those who deal with the public more courteous and helpful, the Star newspaper reported, citing Samsudin Osman, the chief secretary to the government.
Undercover
Senior civil servants will go undercover as members of the public for phone calls to government agencies to hunt for employees who are rude or inefficient, Samsudin said, though he didn't specify what punishment they might face.
"The courses focus on things like what it means to smile and how we should treat our clients or the polite way to answer the telephone," the daily quoted Samsudin as saying.
People often complain of bad service at payment counters for utilities: Cashiers can be found chatting about lunch plans or domestic problems while delivering withering glares at customers who demand service. Getting through to the right official on the telephone sometimes becomes a merry-go-round, with callers bounced from one department to another.
Victim
Samsudin said he himself has been a victim of slow government bureaucracy.
"I know how difficult it is to get through the person I want to speak to," the Star quoted him as saying.
Nordin Abdul Hamid, union chief for government employees, said the courses should be held more regularly, saying "I believe there is need for civil servants to be more courteous."
VENEZUELAN ACTION: Marco Rubio said that previous US interdiction efforts have not stemmed the flow of illicit drugs into the US and that ‘blowing them up’ would US President Donald Trump on Wednesday justified a lethal military strike that his administration said was carried out a day earlier against a Venezuelan gang as a necessary effort by the US to send a message to Latin American cartels. Asked why the military did not instead interdict the vessel and capture those on board, Trump said that the operation would cause drug smugglers to think twice about trying to move drugs into the US. “There was massive amounts of drugs coming into our country to kill a lot of people and everybody fully understands that,” Trump said while hosting Polish President
A French couple kept Louise, a playful black panther, in an apartment in northern France, triggering panic when she was spotted roaming nearby rooftops. The pair were were handed suspended jail sentences on Thursday for illegally keeping a wild animal, despite protesting that they saw Louise as their baby. The ruling follows a September 2019 incident when the months-old feline was seen roaming a rooftop in Armentieres after slipping out of the couple’s window. Authorities captured the panther by sedating her with anesthetic darts after she entered a home. No injuries were reported during the animal’s time on the loose. The court in the
Japan yesterday heralded the coming-of-age of Japanese Prince Hisahito with an elaborate ceremony at the Imperial Palace, where a succession crisis is brewing. The nephew of Japanese Emperor Naruhito, Hisahito received a black silk-and-lacquer crown at the ceremony, which marks the beginning of his royal adult life. “Thank you very much for bestowing the crown today at the coming-of-age ceremony,” Hisahito said. “I will fulfill my duties, being aware of my responsibilities as an adult member of the imperial family.” Although the emperor has a daughter — Princess Aiko — the 23-year-old has been sidelined by the royal family’s male-only
For more than a century, the fate of the dazzling Darya-e-Noor diamond has been sealed inside a bank vault — a mystery that haunts Khawaja Naim Murad, great-grandson of the last prince, or nawab, of Dhaka. Locked away in 1908, were the family’s heirlooms lost during the violence at the end of British rule in 1947? Did they survive Bangladesh’s war of independence in 1971 and the string of coups that followed, or are they still safe, dusty, but untouched? Many suspect that the jewels are long gone and officials at the state-run bank hesitate to simply open the vault, fearing that they
RSS