PM WANTS HIS ADMIN TO UNDERSTAND PULSE OF PEOPLE

PUTRAJAYA, April 28 (Bernama) -- Prime Minister Najib Razak said Tuesday he
wants his administration to be one that understands the pulse of the people.

"The administration must be one that can fathom the daily difficulties and
hardship of the people," he said at the 10th Civil Service premier event at the
Putrajaya International Convention Centre here.

He said his recent walkabouts were not intended merely to get closer to the
people but, more importantly, to get to know in person the difficulties the
people went through in going about their daily lives.

Citing an example, he said it was unimaginable how one could formulate a
public transportation policy unless one went down to the ground and rode in a
Light Rail Transit (LRT) train, a commuter train or a bus, all of which formed
the core of public transportation.

In just a week after becoming the prime minister, Najib went on a walkabout
in Kuala Lumpur to have a first-hand look at how the Chinese, Malays and
Indians, respectively, lived.

Last week, he took a ride in an LRT train and visited the busy Puduraya bus
terminal.

Najib said he had a vivid recollection of the approach adopted by his late
father (second prime minister Abdul Razak Hussein) in reaching out to the
people in the villages, padi fields and land schemes, much of the time riding a
bicycle or taking a boat.

He said the experience gained in such a way was most precious and the
evaluation differed much from the assessment based on reports dished out from
the comfort of air-conditioned offices far from the realities of life.

The prime minister said it was for this reason that he wanted senior
government officers to go down to the ground from time to time to understand the
problems of their stakeholders.

"We must understand our stakeholders in order to be able to deliver what
they require," he said.

"If we really want to serve the people, we have to know the difficulties of
the masses. We have to understand every problem, obstacle and difficulty faced
by the people. Only then can we take the appropriate measures to overcome these
problems," he said.

Najib said he emphasised empathy very much in his administration so that the
solutions for every problem faced by the people would be in tune with their
aspirations.

He also said that leadership would be meaningless unless it was pivoted on
achievement, adding that when the people evaluated public sector and political
leadership, they gauged their achievement.

"Leadership based on achievement is the peak of evaluation for leadership,"
he said.

On the efforts to modernise the public sector, Najib said he did not wish to
adopt an attitude of doing things on the spur of the moment in undertaking
renewal.

"I want to say to the civil servants that what I am saying today, what I am
pledging today, will be taken up with follow-up action.

"From now on, we do not want to be merely uttering pleasant but empty
slogans. It is important that work must be done," he said, adding that the
satisfaction of the people was the main benchmark for the success of the public
sector.
-- BERNAMA