Most civil servants unprofessional

JAKARTA: Only 40 percent of the four million civil servants in the country are professional and perform their job well, a minister said on Tuesday.

State Minister of Administrative Reforms Feisal Tamin said the government was shouldering a huge burden to improve the poor bureaucracy, which President Megawati Soekarnoputri once branded a trash can.

Speaking after a meeting with Vice President Hamzah Haz, Feisal said it would be difficult for the government to dismiss unprofessional civil servants because of the extra expense the state would have to bear in providing them with severance pay.

"For the time being, we can only encourage them to work harder and improve their job performance," Feisal said.

He called on the public to help the government improve bureaucracy by, among other things, reporting any irregularities committed by civil servants to their superiors. -- Antara