“This will improve the financial circumstances of civil servants and their families, and motivate them to provide excellent service,” said Azhar Zainulrashid, who works in the education ministry.

“Indirectly, improving the lot of civil servants would reduce (the temptation of) corruption that has become like a cancer in the nation,” he said at a dialogue session promoting National Transformation 2050 (TN50), a Najib initiative to propel the country to high-income nation status by 2050. Najib was present at the dialogue.

Azhar said many civil servants had on their own taken steps to increase their income but worried that they might face disciplinary action if discovered.

He said civil servants were mostly classified in the B40 income group, whose household income averaged below RM3,900 per month.

“People think we are rich but the reality is otherwise because of our financial commitments,” he said.

He added that civil servants in this category might one day not be able to afford to buy their own house as house prices could exceed RM2 million or even RM3 million per unit by the year 2050.