KUALA LUMPUR: Several government departments may be privatised to house staff members who will be removed from civil service.
Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad said that this is among several options being looked into to help sustain jobs for the former civil servants.
Dr Mahathir was commenting on the need to trim the number of staff in the civil workforce, which is said to be bloated at 1.7 million.
"We are looking into the situation, to determine (the sustainability of their jobs) if they lose their current positions. We are looking at options such as transferring them to different departments or moving them to the private sector.
"And we can privatise several departments, just like what we did with Telekom. We give Telekom some funds, and transfer the staff members there.
"The workers have a choice of staying within the civil service, or moving to the private sector," he said at a press conference at Parliament today.
Telekom, now a well-known telecommunications company, was privatised in 1984.