Chinese Mandarin - Civil service not about salary

Opinion / Liang Hongfu

Civil service not about salary

By Hong Liang (China Daily)
Updated: 2007-04-17 07:18

The argument that top salaries must be paid to attract talent into the
Hong Kong civil service sounds unsavory.

This doesn't suggest the Hong Kong civil servants are over-paid. But the
impression that young talented people are joining the civil service
because of the attractive compensation scheme is certainly not something
that we would like to promulgate.

Instead, we should try to educate our young people to believe that it is
an honor to serve the public, without, of course, the requirement to take
an oath of poverty.

When I was interviewed for my first reporting job at a local newspaper in
Hong Kong, my editor urged me to reconsider my application because, as he
said, the job would never make me rich. But he also added that the job
would offer hot-blooded and liberal-minded idealists a sense of
accomplishment.

To be sure, good civil servants are made of a different mettle. But they,
too, must possess the same dedication and harbor the same ambition to
advance the interest of their fellow citizens, sometimes at their own
expense.

It is quite common in some countries, including the US and Britain, for
highly successful business people and professionals to answer the call to
serve in their respective governments. I don't think any of them cared
how much the job would pay because it could never match what they were
earning in the private sector.

In contrast, Hong Kong has placed a strong emphasis on equating its civil
service pay scale with that of the private sector. But when you consider
the huge differences in the two systems, the practice of using the
private-sector pay scale as a reference looks questionable if not
outright nonsensical.

The civil service of Hong Kong operates on a well-established set of
rules and regulations based on the concept of collective responsibility.
As such, the system has the built-in mechanism to minimize the abuse of
power by individual officials. It also means that not a single official
can be held responsible to the public for administrative inadequacies or
oversights.

In contrast, individual performance is emphasized in most private
enterprises. When a costly mistake is made, heads will roll. Every
employee in a private sector company is measured against his or her
performance. Those who fail to meet the grade will most certainly be let
go, and those who exceed their quota allotments are supposed to be
reworded accordingly. This is at least the basic concept.

It is easy to see that the level of job security in the civil service far
exceeds that in the private sector. What's more, the pressure to perform
is understandably much lighter on civil servants than on employees,
especially those in sales, in private sector businesses.

This raises the question of whether the government needs to compete with
the private sector for the best and brightest to fill the civil service
posts. It seems obvious that the well-established government machinery
can be managed by a team of dedicated bureaucrats who don't have to be
terribly bright as long as they are diligent enough to follow the rules.

But mediocrity could inhibit the government from leading Hong Kong in
overcoming the challenges posed by and exploiting the opportunities
arising from the rapid economic development on the mainland. In these
trying times, we need the bureaucrats to keep our system working and we
also need innovative thinkers to show us the way to the next level of
social and economic progress.

This talent doesn't join the government for the money. Like the best and
brightest reporters in our profession, these people believe it's an honor
to do something good for the society.

E-mail: jamesleung@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 04/17/2007 page10)

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