YOURSAY | ‘Bossku’ should check his facts on Harapan’s political appointees

YOURSAY | ‘While the rakyat worry over losing jobs, PN is busy creating jobs for their MPs.’

Najib: It was Harapan that promised to end political appointments

The Wakandan: Dr Mahathir Mohamad, during his reign as prime minister of the Pakatan Harapan government, did make political appointees to government-linked companies (GLCs) early last year. We do not have to have a long memory to remember them.

Lawyer Mohamed Haniff Khatri Abdulla was Penang Regional Development Authority (Perda) chairperson. Haniff Khatri had represented Mahathir, who is Bersatu chairperson, in a number of previous court cases.

Bersatu supreme council members Akhramsyah Muammar Ubaidah Sanusi as Mara Corporation Sdn Bhd chairperson, former Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) deputy vice-chancellor Sukiman Sarmani as Universiti Teknikal Mara (Unitek-Mara) chairperson, among others, were political appointees.

These may not be MPs but they were not exactly neutral. They were high ranking party members of the then ruling Harapan government or someone closely aligned to it. Weren’t they political appointees and wasn’t it a promise broken not to appoint political appointees to the GLCs?

If this is being stated by someone else, perhaps from Harapan, probably nobody would dispute it but just because it was former prime minister Najib Abdul Razak, some of us conveniently forgot what Harapan did.

To be credible, we just have to be honest with ourselves and able to accept the truth, no matter who says it.

Evin K: This is a rare occasion but I can't help but agree with Najib - we all witnessed a bunch of hushed and rushed political appointments when Harapan took over the government, albeit all their promises not to do so, although not as rampant as during BN's rule, and not as open and as encouraged as now with the Perikatan Nasional (PN) administration.

PN never made any promises that there won't be any political appointments, unlike Harapan in the past. In fact, they have promised the rakyat nothing, no manifestos, no official pledges nor assurances, or any of that - just free-wheeling, taking it one day at a time, just seeing how it goes.

So, this point should be fairly awarded to Najib and the current PN government. They are absolutely right in pointing that out.

I hope Harapan takes heed of all this and should they win GE15, ensure there are zero political appointments when they take over Putrajaya.

Winter As Come: I don’t have a problem with political appointees (with bipartisan support) as long as they are qualified and meritorious, accountable and transparent (salaries, allowances, among others, disclosed).

These GLCs must be for the benefit of all Malaysians and professionally run. But the problem is Umno created so many inefficient GLCs, many badly run and corrupt, staffed by cronies and for their benefit and to serve Umno’s interest.

With oil prices at US$25 per barrel, small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) unable to compete with GLCs, foreign investors withdrawing from the country and Mahathir destroying palm oil’s biggest customer, among other problems, we have got bigger issues to handle.

Gerard Lourdesamy: Harapan did make some political appointments to GLCs, purportedly based on merit and professionalism. But at no time did Mahathir said every Harapan MP not appointed to the cabinet will be appointed to GLCs and statutory bodies. That is the big difference.

It is ridiculous that apart from having a bloated cabinet of 70 ministers and deputy ministers, the backdoor PN government is now proposing to appoint some 42 to 44 other PN MPs to positions in GLCs and statutory bodies.

It is unheard of in any functioning parliamentary democracy for all government MPs to be put on the payroll vote. Perhaps Najib is commenting because he wants to be the next Petronas chairperson or Bank Negara governor.

Saving TunDrM: The comment is about GLC heads exploiting their position to enrich themselves. And no other than the “kleptocrat” himself is the most qualified to comment on this matter.

And look at Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin cleaning up the loopholes and the many Malaysian Official 1 (MO1)-friendly CEOs that managed to slip through the get-rid-of-them filter the first time around.

Just read the many comments in former minister Rafidah Aziz’s critique of these political appointments, which all started with Umno.

GE14 was won by Harapan almost entirely because of the 1MDB scandal and Najib. It looks like we will have to thank Najib again for the continued destruction of Umno. The ‘pecah perut’ thing is he really thinks he is helping Umno. What a joke.

Because we, the rakyat, are going to vote for anything that has Najib as “Bossku”, you think?

Vijay47: In the distant past, our national leaders were inspired by one special vocation – to serve the people with honest selflessness and dedication.

Then Tunku Abdul Rahman passed on and virtue began to fade, a fate that struck especially acutely with the arrival of the second or third prime minister later.

There was this heaven-sent discovery that the country’s wealth was there for the picking with no threat of punishment; there was this awareness that when everyone was doing it, no one would be brought to account.

Despite this belief in omnipotence, there was some adhesion to the rules of the crooked game, the thieving if not carried out at the dead of night, was at least done furtively since there was this small shame and humiliation to reckon with.

From initial looting of thousands, the bandits progressed to hundreds of thousands, to millions, until billions became the order of the day. We reached a status where the theft of a few millions was something to be sniffed at.

It was not just the amounts that had swelled with time, along with the assurance of not being arrested let alone being charged, there was a wholesale change in attitude also.

The thieves actually began to believe that raping the treasury was a benefit that came with position and that only an utter fool would not exploit the opportunities seemingly granted by the public every five years.

Thus, we began to witness the astonishing spectacle of the leaders of the band openly acknowledging their corruption and even assuring that there was nothing to be ashamed about, not when one was the boss.

There was a sudden fly in the ointment - a short-lived change in government where for a moment it appeared that crime would be stopped and those committing it would face due consequences.

With the betrayal we are all now familiar with by a Judas from the past, that hope came to a miserable end. But a lesson seems to have been learned – steal as you must, but don’t label it as such.

Thus we come to the next step in a nation’s progress in chicanery, the appointment of politicians to head GLCs renowned as gold mines of failure. 

Losses were not anyone’s concern, what was important was remuneration, privileges, and bonuses. Also, I forget, opportunities. There is not even any pretense that the most qualified was selected when the only thing that mattered was party-affiliation.

And we are back to the future when we again sadly ask, “Malu apa, Bossku?”

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