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The Super-Efficient Cabinet That Shoots Itself In The Foot

The Prime Minister, Dato' Seri Mahathir Mohamed, insists his cabinet is at the cutting edge, not chopping block, of Malaysia's development and progress. He does not say it is in the same league, no doubt, as Perwaja Steel, the Employees Provident Fund, Renong, United Engineers Malaysia, Petronas, Telekom, MAS, Putra Jaya, all synonyms for Malaysia's "development and progress". But hear him out: "This cabinet of ours, which we know and other's don't, is more relaxed than those of other countries. Sometimes we hear raucous laughter in the Cabinet as if they are not serious and are just attending a social function." He implies that others like Mr Goh Chok Tong, Mr Tony Blair, Mr Atul Bihari Vajpayee drool at the prospect of having the excellent Malaysian ministers in their cabinet as Dato' Seri Ling Liong Sik, Dato' Seri S. Samy Vellu, Datin Rafidah Aziz, Dato' Seri Syed Hamid Albar, Datin Shahrizat Jalil. With them around, Malaysia's future is in good hands. No doubt theirs too. No doubt it is. Which is why they insist on staying on in the cabinet even after they have long begun their retirement in office. So they could be auctioned off to the highest bidder from foreign countries who need them.

But, as we know, nothing is as he says. The cabinet is our biggest disaster, at the apex of our other disasters. Every policy, plan, project it approves brings in its wake fresh disasters. It does not matter what, it is a disaster. You pick an area, and disasters flow out like confetti at a wedding. Our latest disaster: illegal foreign workers. Malaysia has more foreign workers, legal and illegal, than Indians. It, without rhyme or reason, ordered the illegals repatriated with an urgency bordering on panic, threatening imprisonment and caning for those caught after the amnest ended last month. It disrupted life and business. But the law is the law. There are no exceptions. A few unfortunates are ordered jailed and caned. The exodus began. The construction and plantation industries came to a standstill. These two sectors alone need a million workers.

Dr Mahathir ate humble pie and rushed to Indonesia to meet President Megawati Sukarnoputri to get them back. The Malaysian media tells of an emboldened leader who told the Indonesian president some unpalatable hometruths. That is pardonable since its primary task is not to report the news or report about the Malaysian conditions but to put the Prime Minister and his policies in a favourable public relations light. Our super-efficient cabinet made him do it. It could have asked for caution and deeper thought. It did not. The policy was skewed from the start. But since it made money for lots of people, it was the best policy, in the Cabinet view.

Meanwhile, the Home Affairs Ministry informs the Master Builders Association of a special "fast track" approval at a special fee of "only" RM1,000 per worker. Since there is an immediate need for one million wokers, that is RM1 billion in the government coffers, which it desperately needs for it is short of funds for current expenses. The employer has other costs -- the return air fare, the agents' commission, the medical expenses and other miscellaneous charges -- that could be as high as RM5,000 per worker. There is always a scam behind every government move. This is no exception. If the cabinet is as on the ball as the Prime Minister proclaims, why did it not cut short the anguish, the dislocation, the anxiety and the economic disruption?

The government-ordered exodus caused havoc in ways unimagineable. It slowed or shut down industries, restaurants, small businesses, caused heavy losses, disrupted schedules. But the government cannot be denied its pound of flesh or its money. Besides, the agents are or linked to UMNO politicians. One chain of these agents is controlled by the son of a former cabinet minister and who is never seen, even at the teh tarik stalls, except in his Lambhorghini or other mechanical brides of the rich and the powerful. They need money for the general elections to come. This is a neat way to pass money along to them, and get much needed funds for the Treasury to pay its bills. The policy is framed not so it would stick but so some interested party could make money. The super-efficient Malaysian cabinet that Dr Mahathir extols saw nothing wrong with creating the havoc it did. Amidst the laughter and camraderie, no one thought of asking the most obvious question: Why.

The cabinet, as the Prime Minister implies, is a social club. It does no work, gives no directions, its members are not of the league if they are not there for at least two decades. It is Malaysia's prime sinecure, there not to do any work, but to lecture and hector what ought to be so it becomes an accepted fact of governance. Is there corruption in Malaysia? NO! The Prime Minister says there is not. So there cannot be. Should we learn English? YES! The Prime Minister says we must. If you disagree, Sarjan Isa will read you the Internal Security Act and cart you off to an unintended holiday at the spartan Kamunting Time-Sharing holiday resort, which the government conveniently runs for those who do not agree with it; unlike other time-sharing resorts, which allows you a week's holiday for the next 30 years, the Kamunting resort is more relaxed. It allows you two years at a time, and extended, without cost, for further periods of two years. Whether you liked to or not. One fellow liked it to so much that he stayed for nearly three decades. Holidays do not come better than that. It is, in the government's view, excellent value for money.

The Prime Minister is right in one sense. The whole country is on holiday. If any one disagrees, Sarjan Isa and others would put him right. So the cabinet every Wednesday for a social gathering, incidentally approving measures that threatens one's life and limb amidst the aimless social chatter, racuous laughter and the mindless camraderie. Malaysia, as the self-proclaimed leader of IT in South East Asia (it would have been Asia but for the workoholics in East Asia and South Asia), is now in thick of IT's latest creation, Virtual Reality and Mind Numbing Entertainment. Any cabinet which works assiduously to improve standards and life of the people are freaks who out to spend their lives in Kamunting and never let out. So happy is Malaysia that even Singapore recognises the Malaysian government's absolute integrity and sense of purpose that all newspapers carried the asinine but politically correct of the Singapore prime minister, Mr Goh Chok Tong.

Dr Mahathir did the impossible of making silk purses out of sow's ears when bidding farewell to a minister who could not remain because he could not be elected and his six-year term as senator expired and cannot be renewed. The minsiter, Tan Sri Pendekar Mulia Amin, left the cabinet on May 17. His farewell is three months later. One would have thought the cabinet would have feted him within weeks. But then, Pillai, why are you so jealous? Did you not know the cabinet is so busy in enjoying themselves in racuous laughter and social chit-chat that it had much difficulty to slot the time to fete an ex-cabinet minister. After all, an ex-cabinet minister is there to be consiged to the dustbin of history, a worse fate no doubt for a cabinet minister whose home is the dustbin of politics.

M.G.G. Pillai
pillai@mgg.pc.my