Bintulu Member of Parliament, Dato' Seri Tiong King Sing said the department
would not be able to win the public confidence if the lacklustre attitude of
their staff were remained unchecked with no effort to improve their
services.

"It will also give a bad impression to the Barisan Nasional government who
had always wanted government servants to render people-friendly services,"
he told reporters here after visiting the NRD office here on Saturday.

Relating his experience, Tiong said that he arrived at the office about
7.45am where no single staff were seen around at the premises which had
already being packed by people who wanted to apply for their ICs or other
NRD-related documents.

The first NRD staff only arrived at 8.10am to open up the office and Tiong
related that another counter staff even arrived at 8.15am. When he tried to
call up the State NRD headquarters in Kuching, he was surprised that none of
the senior officers or heads were there to reply.

"The worst scenario that I saw in the office was when a female staff in
charge of issuing the queue number to the public had even banged the counter
table and rudely told the public to back away from the counter," lamented
Tiong who wondered whether the staff could have adopted a polite way to
request for order at the office's public bay.

He felt that such an attitude potrayed by the staff was unacceptable and he
also expressed his concern whether the attitude had already being inculcated
at home and taken up by their children.

The staff made a cynical remarks by thanking Tiong when he gave her a
photocopy of a "Quote of the day" for her to read. The quote of the day
concerned the importance for government staff to deliver their best service
to the public.

Tiong visited the NRD office here after his Public Service Centre had
received numerous complaints over the dissatisfactory services.

One of the complainants had even claimed that he had made several trips from
his longhouse to the office to ask for his IC but for each time, he was told
that the card had yet to arrive and was asked to check again at a later
date.

In another complaint, a NRD staff was alleged to have asked the complainant
to go to Kuching himself to check for his identity card.

Being a people-elected representative, Tiong felt that the unacceptable
attitude of government servants when dealing with the public could seriously
affecting the Barisan Nasional government.

Tiong said that he would be bringing up the matter during this week's
parliamentary sitting and would check with the Ministry of Home Affairs to
find out measures taken to improve the services at the department.

"I also planned to urge the Ministry to investigate on the uncollected IC
issue to determine whether it is really the public who are at fault for not
collecting it or the NRD officers were simply reluctant or lazy to look for
it," he added.