The days of top executives of government-linked companies (GLCs) drawing fat paychecks regardless of their companies’ performance are over, Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad has warned.
He said what happened in the past was that the government found it convenient to place its supporters in these GLCs and these executives enjoyed a good income from the companies, he said in an interview with Investine, the Hong Kong-based business news portal covering mainly South East Asia.
“The result is that we have a lot of people who are non-professionals and unfamiliar with business, but holding high posts in the GLCs, and this, of course, defeats the whole purpose.
“The GLCs inevitably lose money, but the salaries of these people is very high and they enjoy all this without bothering whether the company makes a profit or not,” he said.
The prime minister emphasised that the Pakatan Harapan government now wants to place professionals in these GLCs and their salaries would not be very high.
“The salaries may be slightly higher than that of the civil service, but if they perform, then we’ll pay them a bonus. Otherwise, they won’t receive the high income as currently, and we will change the management so that we appoint professionals,” Dr Mahathir further warned.
He added that it did not matter whether “they are party people or not”, but it is key that they must be professionals fitting into the business of the company.