A ‘super-MESSY’ government in the making, Najib?

ARCHIVES 2009

By admin-s On Sep 10, 2009

By Guan Sin

At first, I thought Malaysian prime minister Najib’s differentiating characteristic is in the mega stunt show that he has been staging, focusing his energy and the nation’s resources on public image. Hence the deceptive 1Malaysia slogan, the subsequent ‘programmes’ related to it, and its reactions to unfolding events such as Teoh Beng Hock tragedy.

And when Gerakan chief Koh Tsu Khoon was made the back-door minister to take charge of KPI, I still half-believe in this ‘pseudo-direction’ of Najib government. That is, the minister is to identify and work out the KPIs for various ministries so that they can project a more positive image to the rakyat. Still in line with public image and stuntmanship, although it starts to mess up authority, accountability and responsibility in the Cabinet. (What is the powers of a KPI minister, especially over other ministers and ministries?)

As if one KPI minister is not confusing enough, Najib created a second KPI minister, given to another back-door minister Idris Jala, former CEO of national carrier MAS. The KPI portfolio starts to get bloated. The Cabinet itself starts to get bloated too, with many back-door ministers added. (Even a minister drop-out, Jamaluddin Jarjis, was given the job of ambassador to the United States and accorded the status of cabinet minister!) And you have a minister (Idris) reporting to another minister (Tsu Khoon), effectively a sub-minister in the Cabinet! (Screenshots addressed the confusion very well.)

Ok, it really starts to get confusing in terms of authority, responsibility and accountability. Are we seeing the emergence of a super-ministry that is one layer above the existing ministries? Not that I see anything highly of the clueless Koh Tsu Khoon. Are all the government officers effectively demoted by one level now that they are one level away from the prime minister? But mess is certainly what we see.

And yesterday, the mess is further confirmed with the creation of a … super task force to probe the PKFZ scandal. (Hence the “super-messy” in the subject of this post.) It is so amusing. You set up a task force to probe something, it seemed to stir too many things, and you set up a super task force to supercede whatever stirred up by the task force. This is effectively what it is when Najib announced it yesterday. Put it another way, it is a damage control task force.