LETTER | Is Nurul Izzah's appointment justifiable?

LETTER | It is only almost a month after Nurul Izzah Anwar begins to serve that the people know that she, Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim’s daughter, had been appointed as his senior economic and financial adviser. She will be assisting Anwar in the Prime Minister’s Department as well as the Finance Ministry.

Anwar conveniently avoided the issues of nepotism and bloated public service when he refuted the attacks by opposition MPs from Perikatan Nasional (PN) on the matter by highlighting that many of the previous ministers from the coalition do not have proper degrees to hold a certain portfolio.

In contrast, he said, Nurul Izzah studied public and social policy for her master’s at John Hopkins University in the United States.

I was very disappointed when I read the news about this. Anwar had been shouting “good governance” and “battle corruption” throughout the whole campaigning period of the 15th general election, and sacking all political appointees from government-linked companies immediately after he was appointed prime minister to uphold the anti-cronyism principle, is this really the quality of service that he could deliver?

It doesn’t matter whether Nurul Izzah possesses the right degree. The issue now lies with the conflict of interest that could arise after her appointment to such an important position.

Anwar already raised eyebrows among certain quarters when he took the finance portfolio while being the prime minister, worrying that huge corruption scandals like 1MDB during Najib Abdul Razak’s tenure as prime and finance minister may repeat.

Now, he appoints his own daughter to become the senior economic and financial adviser to assist him in crafting economic and financial policies. This is just illogical, both ethically and politically.

Ethically, this appointment drags the government down into the spiral of nepotism, which is a practice that Anwar promised the people to eliminate in order to uphold the spirit of good governance.

Politically, it grants the opposition PN more room to attack Anwar and his government. A probable rhetoric that they may use is that Anwar, controlled by DAP, is now further strengthening the DAP hegemony on the country’s money by adding his daughter into the framework, further tarnishing the Malays’ and bumiputera’s economic participation. Old, but super effective to draw Malay voters away from Pakatan Harapan.

Looking from another perspective, does the prime minister really need an economic and financial adviser? In the cabinet itself, Anwar has one economic minister and two deputy finance ministers. In the Finance Ministry, there are the finance director-general and secretary-general heading the department under Anwar. Can’t they provide professional economic and financial advice?

Don’t forget, Anwar is one of the loudest when shouting against unnecessary appointments during former prime ministers Muhyiddin Yassin and Ismail Sabri Yaakob’s eras.

Though Nurul Izzah, as claimed by Anwar, is not receiving any salary, such practice of nepotism will still do no good for his image as a reformist.

To move forward in his battle against corruption, Anwar must reconsider the appointment of Nurul Izzah as his senior economic and financial adviser. He has only led the country for two months and there is still a very long way to go in reforming the country that has been heavily damaged by practices of cronyism and nepotism.

Therefore, he cannot afford to have his image and trust among the people tarnished early in his tenure.

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.