PUTRAJAYA: Malaysia’s fifth prime minister, Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi was a calm man whose leadership skills allowed him to handle crises in a wise and responsible approach, Public Services director-general Tan Sri Wan Ahmad Dahlan Abdul Aziz said.
Abdullah always was able to approach a crisis with the view that there was a solution at hand, he added.
“Throughout my time serving under Abdullah, I learnt many things, especially about how to tackle crises. His approach was actually very simple – that a matter or issue was not unsolvable but was something that could be resolved – it was his method to be more organised and wise about things,” he told reporters after attending his department’s Jalinan Ukhwah event here today.
Wan Ahmad Dahlan, a civil service veteran of almost 30 years, described Abdullah as a teacher and leader to those who served in his administration.
“As far as I can remember, there wasn’t anything out of the ordinary, he was always calm, and it seemed like he acted as a kind of role model that guided civil servants at that time,” he said.
One of Abdullah’s more significant contributions in the civil service was to emphasise to civil servants to deliver the best service so that the public could enjoy every service offered by the government.
“His contributions are actually immense as he was also a civil servant previously,” he shared, pointing out that Abdullah’s emphasis on services has become part of the civil service’s norms till today.
Wan Ahmad Dahlan noted that Abdullah’s death was a big loss for the country and the civil service sector.
Abdullah died at the National Heart Institute at 7.10 pm yesterday and was interred at Heroes’ Mausoleum, National Mosque at 2.30 pm today. He was 85.
