KUALA LUMPUR: It is time for Malaysia to transition away from political appointments in Federal Statutory Bodies (FSBs) and Government Linked Companies (GLCs) to ensure good governance and integrity, says the Institute for Democracy and Economic Affairs (Ideas).
The nonprofit research institute said that the continued persistence of political appointments in these entities underscored the deep entrenchment of politics in Malaysia's public sector governance.
“Appointments can be used for political gain and for dishing out sinecures.
“Combined with a lack of a transparent or merit-based appointment mechanism, this can result in poor oversight and severe mismanagement of these entities which leads to heavy losses in public funds.
“In the worst case scenario, this could lead to abuse of power and corruption, which will degrade public trust in our government system,” Ideas Malaysia public finance unit assistant manager Doris Liew said in a press conference here on Thursday (Oct 3).
Ideas Malaysia senior research manager Alissa Marianne Rode also called for the transparent listing of standardised qualifying and disqualifying criteria for appointee candidates.
“Some of the statutory bodies already have these minimum criteria in their acts but it is currently not standardised and is still mostly up to discretionary appointments by the minister.
“Instead, there should be a central coordinating independent entity that follows this due process to vet and make appointments instead of being up to the minister.
“There should also be a select committee in parliament that scrutinises any appointments, especially those in high public interest bodies such as Lembaga Tabung Haji (TH).
“This select committee should also serve to evaluate the annual performance of all FSBs and GLCs to ensure all is well,” she said in the same press conference.
Citing data from Pantau Kuasa (a website that tracks political appointments), Doris noted a positive trend with Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim’s government political appointments being the second lowest among the last five administrations so far.
Some 95 political appointments have been identified so far in the current government which includes 79 FSB and 16 GLC appointments, based on FSB data as of September 2024 and GLC data up to October 2023.
Only former prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s administration, that lasted from May 2018 to February 2020, had fewer political appointments at only 86 which comprised 13 GLC and 73 FSB appointments.
Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s administration had the highest number of political appointments at 301 during the period of 2016 to May 2018, consisting of 32 GLC and 269 FSB appointments.
Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob’s tenure as prime minister from August 2021 to November 2022, saw the second highest number of political appointments at 273, which consisted of 33 GLC and 240 FSB appointments.
Former prime minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin had the third highest number of political appointments of 186, which comprised 31 GLC and 155 FSB appointments, during his tenure from March 2020 to August 2021.
The Ministry that saw the most amount of FSB political appointments over the last five administrations was the Prime Minister’s Department at 139.
The Rural and Regional Development Ministry, and the Higher Education Ministry saw the second and third highest FSB political appointments at 113 and 85 respectively
For GLCs, the Rural and Regional Development Ministry saw the most number of political appointments over the last five governments at 46.
Meanwhile, the Finance Ministry and Prime Minister's Department came in second and third in the highest number of GLC political appointments at 45 and 14 respectively.
Last month, Anwar announced the formation of a committee to rationalise statutory bodies to increase their efficiency and was among upcoming planned reforms to the civil service.
