Kuala lumpur: A total of 14 ministry secretaries-general are required to undergo performance assessments of their development project implementation after being found to have fallen short of the targets set, said Chief Secretary to the Government Tan Sri Shamsul Azri Abu Bakar. He stated that the assessment is conducted under the government's merit-based system, which incorporates two main mechanisms, namely demerit and remerit, to evaluate the actual performance of the ministries.

According to BERNAMA News Agency, Shamsul Azri emphasized the process by saying, "Regarding the assessment, if a ministry's development projects are poorly executed, we issue a demerit. But if they have achieved other significant outcomes, at national or international level, we will fairly remerit them," he said after the meeting of the Federal-State Relations Committee. Also present at the meeting were Public Service director-general Tan Sri Wan Ahmad Dahlan Abdul Aziz and Border Control and Protection Agency (AKPS) director-general Datuk Seri Mohd Shuhaily Mohd Zain.

Shamsul Azri further elaborated that the government will focus on assessing economic development projects under the 12th Malaysia Plan before finalizing the scores for the 14 ministries that failed to meet their targets. "We will wait until after Aidilfitri to determine the next steps," he stated.

On January 15, Shamsul Azri had pointed out that the 14 ministries had been identified as failing to meet their physical development project targets for the previous year, with development expenditure recording only 87.91 percent, which is below the national average and requiring serious attention.