Less sleep and more work for PM

Najib on a roll as GE14 draws near

IPOH: It is less sleep but more work and even more talking for Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak as the general election nears.

“I am awake more and I also talk more. Hopefully, the votes will also be more,” he said in reply to an online question asking him how much sleep he gets these days.

Using the Slido.com application, the audience was given a chance to pose questions to the Prime Minister at the “Budget 2018” talk for over 5,000 civil servants held at Sultan Azlan Shah Health Science College near here.

To a question on why civil servants staying at government quarters were encouraged to buy property under the 1Malaysia Public Housing Project, Najib said: “The quarters do not belong to us, they are the property of the Government.

“I want civil servants to have their own assets when they retire.”

Asked about his most memorable moment, Najib said in the context of Perak, it was the formation of the state government in 2009 after Barisan Nasional wrested the state from the Opposition.

Earlier, Najib said he was optimistic that the ringgit would surge to RM3.80 against the US dollar in the near future.

He said this was due to positive indicators of the country’s strong economic performance, as well as exports of more than RM80bil in the first quarter of the year.

Beyond 2020, the Government is looking to double the size of Malaysia’s economy to RM2 trillion by 2025, from the estimated RM1.3 trillion now.

He said with all the positive developments, he hoped to ensure that Malaysia was listed under the top 20 countries in the world.

Further addressing the crowd, Najib said the Government had no plans to downsize its 1.62 million-strong civil service, but had been increasing and providing better services for them.

He said several Opposition leaders had insulted civil servants by calling them kucing kurap (people of no significance), while the Penang Institute said the country only required 430,000 civil servants.

“So if the Opposition wins, more than half of you (referring to civil servants) in the hall will be terminated, as the Opposition has no respect for civil servants.

“We, the Government, want to increase the number of civil servants instead,” he said, adding that there were more plans ahead as the country’s economy expanded.