Dissolution of Jasa victimises staff, says director

Jasa director Tun Faisal Ismail Aziz says agency has an important role to play and that it has more than 1,100 staff, not all of whom are political appointees.

(Bernama pic)

PETALING JAYA: A director of the Special Affairs Department (Jasa) has slammed the new government’s decision to dissolve the agency, saying the move victimises its staff of more than 1,100.

Speaking to FMT, Tun Faisal Ismail Aziz, the director of Jasa’s strategic communications division, also disputed Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s rationale of downsizing the civil service due to the country’s RM1 trillion debt.

Tun Faisal said the dissolution of Jasa wasn’t right, as the agency played an important role for the government of the day and that not all of its staff were political appointees.

“We serve to obtain feedback for the government of the day and explain the government’s initiatives to the grassroots, and we have a presence at every parliamentary and state constituency,” he said, adding the Department of Information didn’t have such a presence on the ground.

“If the new administration wants to sack political appointees I can understand, it’s okay, but we have 850 contract staff who are non-political appointees and 300 staff who are permanent civil servants. It’s not right to victimise them,” he said, adding only a small number of Jasa staff were political appointees.

“If you want to sack those political appointees linked to Umno, it is fine, but not the other civil servants.”

Asked about the salary bill for Jasa, Tun Faisal said he was not privy to that information, but said on average most earned between RM2,000 and RM4,000 as per the government’s grading system.

“In my case, I am a contract staff, so my salary is based on a certain grade. The director general, now a vacant post, is a political appointee and his lump sum salary would be less than RM20,000.”

Previously, Amanah’s communications director Khalid Samad had said Pakatan Harapan would study the role of Jasa before making a decision to abolish it. Jasa has received a lot of criticisms from Pakatan Harapan leaders and members of the public in the past.

Tun Faisal said: “The Pakatan Harapan government has adopted policies like zero-rating the goods and services tax (GST) without first reintroducing the sales and services tax, while at the same time committing to maintaining the 1 Malaysia People’s Aid (BR1M) and reintroducing fuel subsidies.

“So to me, they don’t have money to do all these. During former prime minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi’s time, the government spent RM20 billion just to maintain fuel prices.”

During the Najib Razak administration, Tun Faisal said, the government rationalised subsidies, saving RM7 billion, while the GST also helped cover the costs of BR1M payouts. -FMT