Dayaks versus Public Service Commission

By ROBERT KENNETH

THE deadline is December 31, 2012 and with roughly a month left, will there be at least 100,000 Dayak job applications submitted to the Public Service Commission (PSC) of Malaysia before the year is over?

The Dayaks were challenged last October 10 by the commission chairman Tan Sri Mahmood Adam to reach the figure following complaints that there are so few Dayak government servants.

The point of contention is that the number of Dayaks in the civil service has for many years been disproportionate to their size as the biggest ethnic group in Sarawak.

As soon as Mahmood issued his challenge, doubters immediately came out of the woodwork, and despite the seriousness of the issue, some Dayak politicians and intellectuals are sceptical, while others have even made jokes about the challenge.

There are those who say it is just “window dressing” and “lip service”, and the low number of applicants was just a convenient explanation for the disproportionately low number of Dayaks in the civil service.

A Bidayuh senior government officer, who requested anonymity, said even if Mahmood’s challenge was met, there was no guarantee that the number of successful Dayak applicants would be proportionate to their overall number.

“If it is true that there haven’t been enough Dayak applicants, then why were there many applicants who complained that they were rejected?” he said.

“According to PSC’s statistics, there were 16,578 Iban, 8,327 Bidayuh and 3,315 Orang Ulu applicants. But how come only 722 Ibans, 475 Bidayuhs and 96 Orang Ulus were selected? Why were so many rejected?

“Why should a smaller community get the most number of jobs just because it has the most number of applicants?”

He also asked whether there was any certainty that online applications would reach the PSC, adding that there were bound to be some “Little Napoleons” somewhere throwing their weight around.

Thus, he urged PSC to ensure that all applications are looked into and that all those from the right communities and with the right qualifications get the posts they apply for.

Meanwhile, several Dayak graduates said they were getting fed-up and losing hope of securing government jobs following several rejections and many years of waiting.

The Dayak Bidayuh National Association (DBNA) and Bidayuh Graduates Association (BGA), however, prefer responding positively to Mahmood’s challenge.

In order to help meet the target, they will hold a roadshow to encourage the Bidayuh to apply for government jobs.

BGA president Dr Ahi Sarok said the roadshow would start on Dec 1 at Bau Civic Centre for DBNA Bau and Serapi. This will be followed by DBNA Bunuk, Mambong and Anah Rais at Kampung Bunuk on Dec 2; Serian Community Hall on Dec 8 for DBNA Serian, Kedup, Tebedu and Balai Ringin; and at DBNA building in Kampung Jampari, Lundu on Dec 9.

Last night, representatives of the PSC had talks with DBNA and BGA exco members and showed them how applicants could apply for jobs online.

Following the meeting, a special committee comprising leaders representing various Dayak non-governmental organisations (NGOs) headed by Sarawak Dayak Graduates Association (SDGA) president Dr Dusit Jaul as interim chairman was formed.

The main task of the committee is to get as many Dayaks as possible to apply for jobs through the PSC to meet the 100,000-applicant challenge.

On Thursday, the committee also discussed with state PSC secretary Mohd Saiful Sungkih Abdullah ways of achieving the target within the short period.

Dusit said getting 100,000 applicants was not a big issue so long as Dayaks were willing to respond to the challenge.

He said the committee would do its best to reach out to eligible but unemployed youths in the rural areas — including private sector employees — to apply for positions in the public service.

“Dayak NGOs will assist the PSC as much as they can to encourage more Dayaks to submit their job applications,” Dusit said.

According to him, at the moment, Dayaks could not blame the PSC for the low number of their people in the public service because the records showed that despite being the most numerous in the state fewer Dayaks applied for government jobs compared to Malays and Chinese.

He revealed that up until last September, PSC’s records showed a total of 66,699 applications for various vacancies.

Of these, 26,233 or 39% were from Malays; Ibans (16,578), Bidayuhs (8,327), Melanaus (6,218), Chinese (5,062) and Orang Ulus (3,315).

From the total, 2,997 were selected — Malays (849), Ibans (722), Chinese (535), Bidayuhs (475), Melanaus (257) and Orang Ulus (96).

“Comparatively the number of Dayak applicants, particularly Ibans, is still very low relative to their total number as the biggest ethnic group in the state.

“If there were fewer applicants compared to those from other ethnic groups, naturally the number of those selected would be fewer. So if our people want to have more chances of being selected, this is the right time,” he said.

He said the committee would soon work out a mechanism on how to get the unemployed, self-employed and those in the private sector to apply for government jobs.