As Malaysian Prime Minister Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob leaves for a one week sojourn to New York to lead Malaysia’s delegation to the 77th Session of the United Nations General Assembly, he would do well on his long plane ride to reflect on the performance or lack of performance of his Cabinet. 10 Ministers in Ismail Sabri’s Cabinet stand out for failing to make the grade.
One, Defence Minister Hishamuddin Tun Hussein Onn for overseeing the RM9 billion purchase of 6 Littoral Combat Ship(LCS) and other defence procurement scandals involving billions of ringgit. The most outrageous scandal involved the payment of RM6 billion without a single ship being delivered. Hishamuddin had even launched an incomplete LCS in 2017 with a RM 400,000 false mast that was then disposed of.
The three PAS Ministers namely Minister in the Prime Minister Department Idris Ahmad, Minister of Energy and Natural Resources Takiyuddin bin Haji Hassan and Minister of Environment and Water Tuan Ibrahim Tuan Man were labelled by Mohamad Agus Yusoff from University Kebangsaan Malaysia as incompetent. Idris is the worst offender frequently using racist and extremist statements, including victim shaming, that disrupts national unity and religious harmony. Tuan Ibrahim has not been effective at all in dealing with the ferocious floods besetting the nation. Johor Umno deputy chief Nur Jazlan Mohamed had described them as low-quality ministers (menteri cap ayam) who were dragging the government down with their incompetence.
Five, Human Resources Minister M. Saravanan for failing to fulfil his promise to resolve the shortage of foreign labour with only 47,000 foreign labour brought in, a mere success rate of only 12% of 385,000 approvals given by him since January this year. Six, Transport Minister Wee Ka Siong for stubbornly insisting on refusing to grant an exemption to the cabotage policy that would allow foreign vessels to repair submarine cables, causing losses of billions of ringgit of digital investments and getting his facts tragically wrong on the recent helicopter crash in Bidor.
Seven, Minister for Women, Family and Community Development Minister Rina Harun for failing to defend the dignity of women and turning a blind eye to gender discrimination. Eight, Communications and Multimedia Minister Annuar Musa for his abysmal failure to stem inflation when he took over the special Cabinet task force against inflation in June but inflation and food inflation rose from 3.4% and 6.1% respectively in June to 4.4% and 6.9% in July. This led to Bank Negara to raise the Overnight Policy Rate by 25 basis points to 2.5% to control inflation.
Nine, Federal Territories Minister Shahidan Kassim for failure to seek solutions towards deteriorating traffic congestion and flood mitigation projects in Kuala Lumpur. Shahidan forgets that Kuala Lumpur is an international city and adopts the extremist policies of PAS by taking steps towards banning concerts by international artists, sale of alcohol in traditional Chinese medicine halls. Ten, Economic Minister Mustapa Mohamed for failing to manage the economy, which Ismail Sabri had questioned former Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin’s criticisms of failed economic management relating to the handling of inflation and the depreciation of the ringgit against the US dollar, Singapore dollar and Indonesian rupiah.
Will Ismail do the right thing against failed Ministers to lessen the suffering of Malaysians, or will he choose to call for general elections this year to cover up the failed performance of his government?