Governor threatens lazy officials

KENDARI, Southeast Sulawesi: Southeast Sulawesi Governor Ali Mazi threatened on Monday to fire lazy civil servants who do not show up for work.

The slothful civil servants would first be issued reprimands and if they ignored the warnings, the local administration would recommend their dismissal, he said.

"Evaluations have been carried out on all civil servants, especially those at the Southeast Sulawesi secretariat, to find out which officials are lazy," Mazi said after attending a meeting at the province's legislative council in Kendari.

He could not specify the number of local civil servants who were habitually late or absent, but said related authorities had given him the data and he would soon follow up on the information by issuing verbal and written reprimands.

The decision to dismiss indolent officials may also affect those in all local government agencies, including the village level, the governor added.

He said serious improvement of the civil servants' performance and discipline was desperately needed so the province's development programs could operate efficiently, particularly in applying development strategies for the Prosperous Community System (SMS). --Antara