MGG Pillai Commentary View

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A buffoon comes to the rescue

THE HEALTH MINISTER, DATO' Chua Soi Lek, is the latest buffoon in the Malaysian cabinet. He says statements he does not believe in or mean, and blames others for the state of affairs for which the National Front government, of which he is a member, is responsible. He blames government scholars, especially in medicine, for staying put in their country of study after graduation. Does he really mean that? Those on government scholarship has to have a gurantor, usually the father or a blood relative. Instead of saying how many Malaysians are staying put overseas, why does he not tell us how he has made guarantors pay, or how much he has collected, or how many doctors have been excused from working in Malaysia? Why does Eire give leave of absence for up to two years, doctors returning home after studying at Malaysian government expense. Most of these scholarship or bursary holders are Malay, usually those in the lower category, and the government would only ask them to pay only if the guarantor is in the Opposition party, usually PAS. How can the National Front ask Malay guarantors to pay what they had promised to do if their chap who got the guarantee does not return? Especially when the Malay ground is, at the moment, split three ways. It is UMNO which runs the National Front, and what UMNO says goes.

The guarantors are usually UMNO members, whom it does not want to go the Opposition. So, the guarantors are usually let free. The Malays stay overseas because most of them had returned home after their studies, waited six to eight months for a government call. They are given the right to work in the private sector, when they inquire why they have not been called. If the ordinary man knows who or why they are overseas, the National Front government should as well. Are they children or relatives of those in power, and so excused so that their guarantors do not have to pay back? There is more to it than Malaysian newspapers, radio and television, and the Minister's press conferences and press statements say. It is unfair to put the blame on those who received a government grant. One farmer's son, having graduated returned. He was left cooling his heels unemployed. He was allowed by the authorities to return when he inquired why he had not been asked to join government service. In the past, this runaround was given to non-Malays. The MCA minister is now worried that it affects Malays too.

He is a medical doctor, but he has not praticed medicine in recent years. He is a full time politician, and busy going up the National Front and MCA heirarcy. He is where he is because he plays politics. He does not ask his civil servants, so it seems from his recent actions. He is afraid of the Malay civil servant. He is like most politicians, in Malaysia of the National Front especially, when he gets verbal diarrhea whenever he gets a chance to be reported by the in radio, television or news media. So he says what comes of his mind, and he is usually wrong. He takes the view, as does many in his position, but especially when he is a non-Malay, and believes what he says is cast in stone, but his words are cast on shifting rafters floating in the sea. They mean nothing. The people do not believe what he, and others of his ilk, says. These statements are made for what he thinks is effect, mainly to ensure he remains in the cabinet, is well regarded in the MCA, is returned in the next election. So he say things that make him a buffoon but mean nothing to the people to whom he addresses these statements. The Malaysian newspapers and news media praise him to the skies for his 'statesman' like statements, but most people, even MCA and UMNO members, despise him.

His latest statement suggests that a policy decision taken in secret by civil servants and announced with great fanfare should never be challenged. The "Tak Nal" anti-smoking campaign is the National Front Government's answer to smoking, especially by children. He now says that the tobacco companies, which loses out if the campaign is a success, had found creative ways to beat the ban. And blames tobacco companies for fighting back. The National Front government wants money from the tobacco companies, even if these companies find it difficult to advertise that fact. The tobacco companies are prepared to fall in line with all this. But now the National Front is confused. It is under pressure from the anti-smoking lobby, and it wants to be the hero to all, it acts as if it is an enemy of the tobacco industry. But if the National Front government has taken a policy decision, as it obviously has, he says no one should query it, least of all those directly affected. He is unhappy that the tobbaco company has decided to beat the government's "Tak Nak!" policy. But that the what companies do.

The water privatisation in Selangor, for instance, is a problem. The company that was given the privatisation fixed it such that the consumer paid ten times and more for their water. When the consumers complained. the government insisted that it was all legitimate. But when the complaints continued, including that made by UMNO members, the government solved the problem by giving it to the same group of people but under a different company, and a new computerised sysem. For the moment, it is all right, but it will be a matter of time because the over charging becomes company policy. But no government minister has come public with this gouging of the consumer. This UMNO company has done worse than the tobacco companies. But it is done in secret, and the tobacco companies damned for defying the government's policy. The government cannot expect others to follow its policies meant for the public to be challenged, if its own companies do not have the people in mind when it rises prices arbitrarily or bills people more than they should pay, and does nothing about it.

That is why the National Front asks ministers other than UMNO to becomes buffoons like Dato' Chua Soi Lek. This is how it thinks it can stay in power. But it would not be so. More than half the population were born after Merdeka in 1957, but most of the younger Malaysians do not accept the National Front though their parents do. Policies take a generation to fruit. A generation is usually 30-35 years. Policies the government took after the racial riots of 1969 begin fruiting now. And the policies taken now will fruit 35 years or so from now. But unless UMNO takes the lead in attacking the people rather than asking the other party leaders in the National Front to do so, it would be in the opposition by a few years before 2020. The 2020 vision was taken to remain in power, and its policies disappeared with the retirement two years ago of the former prime minister, Tun Mahathir Mohamed. Today's policies are thought through by Malays. The non-Malay is ignored or kept away when possible. That is why buffons from the non-UMNO parties are asked defend the undefensible.

M.G.G. Pillai
pillai@streamyx,com