MALAYANISATION OF GOVERNMENT POSTS

Mrs Seow Peck Leng asked the Minister for Finance (a) how many expatriates are still holding posts in the Government; (b) when these posts will eventually be Malayanised: and (c) whether experienced local officers are receiving training locally or abroad to prepare them for taking over from the expatriates.

Dr Goh Keng Swee: There were 509 permanent expatriate officers in the Government service before Malayanisation. Today there are only 13 permanent expatriate officers still in the service. Therefore, Malayanisation has been proceeding faster than scheduled.

According to the Malayanisation programme, there should still be 113 permanent expatriate officers in the service. There are, in addition to the 13 permanent expatriate officers, 54 expatriate officers on short-term contracts in the Government. Of these, 47 are either technical or professional officers whose services are required because of the shortage of local professional and technical officers. Suitable local officers are receiving training locally or abroad to prepare them for taking over from the expatriates. We now have no less than 105 persons studying abroad on training courses at Universities and professional institutes.

Mrs Seow Peck Leng (Mountbatten): Mr Speaker, Sir, I wonder whether those local officers who are sent abroad for training are chosen because of experience in their work or seniority, or is it because they are new people just receiving training.

Dr Goh Keng Swee: The persons sent abroad for training can be conveniently grouped into three grades. First, there are serving officers who are sent abroad on short-term training courses; for instance, the staff of Civil Aviation who were sent either to Australia or New Zealand to take specialist courses in Airport Management, in radar control, and so on, and when they come back they will be more efficient after having undergone these training courses.

Then there are specialist professional courses which we offer to serving officers in certain senior technical grades. Most of these really are courses leading to post-graduate or specialist qualifications which are offered to doctors, and a fair number of doctors are studying in the United Kingdom and Australia.

Then there are first professional training courses or first degree courses which we offer to young persons. Under the previous Government, recruitment for such training courses has been from serving officers in the junior grades; for instance, P.W.D. architectural or engineering technicians or Telecommunications technicians have been given the opportunity to take full professional courses, say, in England.

We have found that this policy is wasteful because quite often these junior technical officers have not either the intellectual capacity or the academic background to benefit from these courses. They either just scrape through with a very low pass degree or, as happens only too often, they fail in their professional or academic examinations. So for such courses - for instance, we are having any number of persons doing professional degrees in Engineering or Science or Quantity Surveying etc. - we are getting them straight from those who have passed the Higher School Certificate Examination, and each year we are getting some of the best of these persons for these higher professional training courses.

Mrs Seow Peck Leng: Mr Speaker, is it true to say then that at the top where there are senior officers serving under the expatriates, the senior officer is being trained to take over the expatriate's job, apart from the junior officers?

Dr Goh Keng Swee: I think the question may give the impression that expatriate officers are always above the local senior officers. In fact, all the top posts, i.e, the highest posts in the civil service, like the post of Permanent Secretary, have already been Malayanised, and the expatriates do not occupy them. Take the P.W.D., for instance. The Director of Public Works and his Deputy are local officers. That is the case too in the Ministry of Health. But we need bodies - that is the main thing. You have to have a doctor, or a surgeon, or an engineer. Because we ate so short of these persons. and if they are expatriates and willing to work here. I would say it is all for the good if we can get an extra body to carry the load.

Mrs Seow Peck Leng: Mr Speaker, Sir, I am sorry I did not make it clear to the Minister. I did lot mean that the expatriate is always at the top. What I meant is that if a serving expatriate is to be Malayanised, is the local officer immediately beneath him, irrespective of whatever post he holds, being trained to take over his post?

Dr Goh Keng Swee: I would say that is the general position. But, of course, there are exceptions. For instance, in the Deputy Prime Minister's portfolio there are Departments such as the Marine Survey Department where you just do not have any local officer, or very few of them, with the requisite professional qualifications. But apart from such rather exclusive services, the position is that local people are being trained to take over.