Written by Dr Wee Jeck Seng
KUALA LUMPUR (Politics Now!) - Cabinet reshuffle: Pay attention to economy, education, improving shortcomings of predecessors and resolve rakyat’s immediate concerns.
Respecting the authority and decision of Prime Minister Dato’ Seri Anwar Ibrahim to reshuffle his Cabinet, MCA hopes that all newly appointed Ministers and Deputy Ministers will be hands-on in their approach, yield more practical results, be performance oriented and resolve the immediate problems which the country and rakyat are currently facing. By promoting economic development, the newly appointed Cabinet Ministers and Deputy Ministers will be able to enhance people’s lives.
As the Prime Minister has exercised his authority to reshuffle his Cabinet, this suggests that the premier himself is aware that the performance of his unity government’s Cabinet has been lacking over the past year. For the newly appointed Ministers and Deputy Ministers who have switched portfolios, the rakyat will continue to observe and evaluate their performance.
Following the Cabinet reshuffle, the various Ministries need to focus on resolving economic and education issues:
ECONOMY
MCA welcomes the Prime Minister’s decision to appoint a second Finance Minister. This is in line with MCA’s earlier suggestion. Via the appointment of an MoF II, the Prime Minister will be able to focus on the macro leadership of his Cabinet and the government, while the MoF II may concentrate on managing and planning economic development.
Malaysia is currently confronted with severe economic challenges. In the last one year since the unity government took office, the cost of living and the prices of essentials have soared while people’s incomes have stagnated. Our ringgit has depreciated terribly, while foreign capital outflows from Bursa Malaysia persist. The outlooks for the stock market, exports and manufacturing do not look promising. These are the challenges which MoF II need to handle and tackle.
The top priority of the new Second Minister of Finance Dato’ Seri Amir Hamzah Azizan should be to reverse the shortcomings of the unity government’s lack of general direction in economic development over the past year, and to formulate a clear, practical and feasible economic revitalisation plan to effectively improve the public’s wellbeing.
EDUCATION
Over the past one year since the unity government came into power, many worrisome phoenomena have emerged in education, especially those which concern vernacular education. This include confusion over the number of teachers for vernacular primary schools, the unknown fate of the 10+6 Chinese primary school plan, allocation for various schools, teaching math and science in English. While changes have occurred, the apparent lack of coordination between the Minister and Deputy Minister of Education on these issues is even more perplexing.
Thus, it becomes necessary for the new Deputy Education Minister Wong Kah Woh to correct the shortcomings of the previous Deputy Minister and seriously look at resolving the afore-mentioned issues on the development of vernacular education in Malaysia.
Written by Dr Wee Jeck Seng. MCA Vice President
Politics Now!
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