The two-cycle salary payment supposedly implemented next month for the civil servants will not happen, announced the government’s Chief Secretary Tan Sri Mohd Sidek Hassan yesterday.

Instead, it will be paid once per month, at the end of the month – as usual.

In mid of June, civil servants were told that as part of the effort to ease the burden, their salary will be paid twice, instead of once per month, beginning August 2008. The first half of the salary will be paid on the middle of the month, while the other half on the month end.

The move was also made to facilitate a better management of financial and cash flow for the government workers, in the wake of the recent hike of the fuel price. As many as 80% of them were found out to have exhausted their salary payment in the first week after the salary pay out.

The decision was met with disagreement and resentment from a number of groups, including the employee union Cuepacs and the the Human Right Commissioner (Suhakam). Cuepacs, on rejecting the government decision, instead asked for the COLA allowance to be raised to RM500 across all locations.

A week later, the Human Resource Minister, Datuk S Subramaniam told the press the decision will be re-considered, and if the implementation may potentially pose problems to the workers, it will be called off.