There is no such thing as a politically neutral civil servant; it does not exist in any country. This is because all civil servants in any country are bound to serve the elected government of the day. They are also bound to give objective -- politically neutral in that it should not be colored by partisan considerations --advice to the government of the day, but that is an entirely different matter. And there is no reason why objective advice cannot be given by a civil servant irrespective of their political views. I know of Singapore civil servants who are members of opposition parties and they do their jobs professionally and this is in fact the norm in most countries. But once the government of the day has taken a decision, the civil servant is duty bound to carry it out irrespective of his political views, or resign if he or she really feels strongly about the matter. The distinction between political neutrality and policy objectivity is not well understood and in this instance I think deliberately confused in order to confuse readers. - Mr Bilahari Kausikan, Ambassador-at-Large at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Former Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign of Affairs, in response to an article in The Online Citizen questioning political neutrality of civil servants
Posted on: Mon, 12 Jan 2015 15:19:17 +0000
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