As is much touted everywhere, Malaysia will be faced with the 'mother of all by-elections' in a few weeks time.
Hence, it is normal that both camps across the political divide have started their campaigning early, although the 'official' campaigning period is only for 10 days, beginning Aug 16, which is the nomination day.
I would like to raise your readers awareness that in the midst of all this intense campaigning and politicking for this by-election, inevitably some government officers in the state and federal governments will take ‘time off’ from their official duties to handle their parties' election machineries.
Prominent office-bearers like the Deputy Prime Minister Najib Razak of the Barisan Nasional as well as Lim Guan Eng, the Penang chief minister will be covering much ground day and night supporting their respective candidates.
As a concerned citizen and a ratepayer, I would like to know whether these office-bearers are taking leave from official duties to perform this partisan campaigning, or is it what normally is being practised - performing partisan matters on government time.
Government time is meant for its officers to do what is expected of them - to govern and provide service to those that elected them.
I seriously believe it is a blatant abuse to go on the campaign trail while still charging your time to the government’s coffers.
Therefore, I am calling for government officers during the Permatang Pauh by-election to be transparent by declaring they are exercising their official annual leave allocation, or in a more inspired move, to only accept payment of their government-paid salary based on the actual hours spent doing government matters.
As a ratepayer, I would demand that the tax I pay not be channeled for partisan politicking. Therefore, pay these officers after deductions have been made for the hours that they spent on the campaign trail.
This may be a tip of the iceberg, taking into account other abuses such as the using of government aeroplanes, community halls and other facilities that should benefit the people irrespective of their political background.
But in our pursuit for good governance, the leader must lead by example. I am just pointing out the obvious method of achieving it.
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