Can we have more competent ministers?

COMMENT | The restricted movement order is necessary, the one-day grace period should have been useful but the chaos on Tuesday and some on-going confusion suggest poor planning and coordination between ministries and agencies.

The long queues in police stations and the double U-turns on permission needed for interstate travel, the shutting down of university hostels which forced students to return home, the lack of protection for low-income workers, no arrangement on childcare for frontliners and the lack of bilateral coordination for Malaysians working in Singapore, all of these raise questions on the competence – not just legitimacy – of the Muhyiddin government.

Why can’t the Home Minister Hamzah Bin Zainuddin, Higher Education Minister Noraini Binti Ahmad, Transport Minister Wee Ka Siong, Human Resource Minister Saravanan Murugan, Women and Family Minister Rina Binti Mohd Harun and Foreign Minister Hishammuddin Hussein plan and coordinate better? Did they raise the issues with the National Security Council, of which Hamzah is a member? These are legitimate questions that they owed answers to all Malaysians.

However, if you attribute the incompetence of these ministers only to the “backdoor” and motley nature of Muhyiddin’s administration and miss the Pakatan Harapan government, do remember until just a month ago, many Malaysians also complained about Harapan's incompetent ministers...