I wish to congratulate my old friend from the opponent party YB Datuk Seri Shahidan Kassim, Member of Parliament of Arau on his appointment as Minister of Federal Territory (FT). He is a senior and experienced politician who has held the post of Chief Minister of Perlis and was the former Minister of PM’s Department.
When YB Datuk Seri Shahidan was a backbencher, he was quite boisterous and sparred incessantly with opposition MPs in the Dewan Rakyat. He loved to debate on practically all parliamentary bills, to the point of repeating his arguments again and again just to taunt opposition MPs. He also constantly interrupted opposition MPs when they delivered their speeches in Parliament.
YB Datuk Seri Shahidan Kassim used to disturb me whenever I presented issues and problems of Kuala Lumpur in the Dewan Rakyat. I am glad that he is now appointed Minister of FT. I hope he can now seriously listen to the views of KL MPs and govern the capital city of Malaysia more effectively.
My wishlist for YB Datuk Seri Shadian Kassim is as follow:
- I hope YB Datuk Seri Shahidan is fully aware of the efforts of the federal government to make Kuala Lumpur a World-Class City. The Minister of FT must think globally in order to make Kuala Lumpur to be attractive to business and tourism to the world and to realise the slogan and concept of “Malaysia Truly Asia”. With this objective in mind, the FT Minister should have more consultation with various business sectors, particularly those in F&B and tourism business. This sector clearly attracts foreign currency and the government is urged to implement practical regulations including SOPs on Covid to smoothen their businesses.
- I hope Datuk Seri Shahidan can be a Minister of FT who is friendly and open to KL MPs of Pakatan Harapan. I hope he won’t follow the bad example of former Minister of FT YB Tan Sri Annuar Musa who had always avoided meeting with MPs of Kuala Lumpur. In fact, Tan Sri Annuar Musa had only one meeting with KL MPs last month, online at that, since becoming FT Minister.
- I hope YB Datuk Seri Shahidan Kassim could emulate the former FT Minister YB Datuk Seri Utama Tengku Adnan and YB Khalid Samad by holding regular meetings with KL MPs together with high-ranking officers of DBKL, so that the MPs can present the problems and issues in our respective constituencies and get feedbacks from the DBKL officers in the meeting at the same time.
- I hope YB Datuk Seri Shahidan Kassim can go to the ground to understand the problems faced by KL folks. I also hope he will consult elected representatives before he makes any important decisions, such as the approval of development projects and other matters in our respective constituencies.
- The Minister of FT is also the chair of meetings of the National Security Council (MKN) in FT, I hope YB Datuk Seri Shahidan Kassim will invite the KL MPs to join the meeting of FT MKN, so that we can become the bridge between MKN and the grassroots and business sectors in Kuala Lumpur.
- I hope YB Datuk Seri Shahidan Kassim can allow KL MPs to appoint members of Residents’ Representatives Council (Majlis Perwakilan Penduduk or MPP) in all the zones in our respective parliamentary constituencies. So that the MPP can have better working relations with the MPs’ service centres in order to give better service to the people.
YB Datuk Seri Shahidan Kassim has been the former Chief Minister of Perlis and he is pretty familiar with the system of governance in the state. I hope he can administer Kuala Lumpur like the way he led the state government, and he should treat KL MPs as excos in the state government and have regular meetings with us.
The close cooperation between Minister of FT and KL MPs will not only reduce open conflict between MPs and Minister of FT, but the close cooperation between Ministry of FT, DBKL and the elected representatives will smoothen the governance of Kuala Lumpur and this will create harmony among the society of Kuala Lumpur.