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DEPUTY Education Minister Datuk Dr Wee Ka Siong must have raised cheer throughout the land with the news of the sacking of one of those infamous "Little Napoleons" infesting the civil service -- this one being an education supervisor in Johor who took it upon himself to decide which temporary teachers should be allowed to apply for entry to teachers' training colleges. The brazen cheek of this minor official, presuming to assert his small authority in determining the composition of the state's teaching corps, is what really galls. Who are these people to arrogate such authority to themselves? This particular case should be made a cause celebre; let this official's fate be a lesson to all others of that ilk, that they must either desist or be exposed and fired.

Since the "Little Napoleons" coinage first entered currency here, on Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi taking top office six years ago, there has been blanket public approval of measures to weed these people out of public service. The initial impetus for this was Abdullah's promise of improving the delivery system by trimming the bureaucracy that was not only choking the channels of effective service to the public -- documents rejected for ink of the wrong colour, for instance, or for not being folded in an approved manner -- but also conducing to the petty corruption of runners, fixers and gofers circumventing strangling procedures for unrecorded fees, presumably to be divided among themselves and their friends behind the counters of public departments.

Wicked as all this is, there is another breed of Little Napoleon that is even worse. These are the petty tyrants who think it falls under their purview to govern. They presume to shape policy, or implement it according to what they consider best for the country they presume to be theirs to do with as they please. This is the sort of contemptible arrogance that leads to unsanctioned temple demolitions, or denials of service, permits, forms and statutory benefits to those they deem unfit. Nothing is more damaging to any administration's hopes of gaining and retaining public confidence.

By their very nature, however, these tiny tyrants should not be difficult to identify; their activities, after all, require them to occupy some kind of office. It behoves all who witness or are victimised by their actions to expose them, and for their superiors to act summarily against them. Blame them, name them, shame them -- and get rid of them.

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