KUALA LUMPUR, June 2 — The prime minister today thanked Malaysia’s civil servants for contributing to the nation’s fight against Covid-19 by taking a cut to their monthly allowances for three months.

In a Facebook post today, Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin said he appreciated and welcomed the solidarity shown by the civil servants through the allowance cut as announced yesterday by the Chief Secretary to the Government Tan Sri Mohd Zuki Ali.

He noted that the contributions by the civil servants through the allowance cut — excluding frontliners and civil servants in the Grade 1 to Grade 28 category — would be channelled to the Covid-19 disaster trust fund.

"This proves the civil servants’ togetherness in bearing the responsibility with the government to fight the Covid-19 pandemic.

"This solidarity also reflects the support of civil servants towards the struggle of frontliners who are working endlessly (berusaha tanpa henti) to curb and protect all of us from the Covid-19 pandemic infections,” he said.

Muhyiddin also thanked all civil servants who have been directly or indirectly involved in handling the Covid-19 pandemic for more than a year now.

He also said that he prayed that all civil servants nationwide — regardless of their role in fighting Covid-19 — would continue to receive divine blessings, and also expressed hope that Malaysia would be protected from the threat posed by the pandemic.

Yesterday, Zuki announced that civil servants of Grade 29 and above would contribute to the national disaster relief trust fund through deductions to their allowance for three months, with the cuts to be at varying rates depending on their ranks or pay grade.

The deductions to last for three months from the fixed entertainment allowance (ITK) will be 50 per cent for those in the highest grade Jusa A, 20 per cent for those in Jusa B, 10 per cent from those in Jusa C, and five per cent for those from Grades 56 to 44.

For those in Grades 41 to 29, RM10 will be deducted from their public service fixed allowance (ITKA), with the deduction to also last for three months

Zuki said such contributions from over 800,000 civil servants — excluding frontliners and those in Grade 1 to Grade 28 — is estimated to be more than RM30 million.

Zuki said this was a gesture of the civil service’s solidarity, following the prime minister’s announcement on May 31 that all federal ministers and deputy ministers will not collect their salaries for three months beginning from June and that the salaries that were foregone would go towards the same trust fund for use in funding the Covid-19-related expenses.

Malaysia is currently under a total lockdown from June 1 to June 14.