Day: May 29, 2010

Oleh G. Manimaran | The Malaysian Insider

KOTA BARU, 29 Mei — Pakatan Rakyat (PR), yang mencipta sejarah dengan menguasai lima kerajaan negeri dan menafikan Barisan Nasional (BN) majoriti dua pertiga di Parlimen dua tahun lalu, perlu mengadakan kajian separuh penggal prestasi mereka.

Justeru, idea agar diadakan kajian separuh penggal itu membabitkan prestasinya sejak Mac 2008 akan diutarakan pada mesyuarat kepimpinan PR
Selasa depan, kata Penasihat DAP Lim Kit Siang.

“Kami akan membincangkan idea agar diadakan kajian separuh penggal kerajaan negeri Pakatan Rakyat selepas dua tahun memerintah,” kata Lim pada sidang media bersama pemimpin-pemimpin PR di sini hari ini.

“Kita sudah memerintah selama dua tahun dan ada baiknya kita melakukan kajian separuh penggal ini… masa yang sesuai untuk menilai prestasi kerajaan negeri… pendekatan, cara… untuk melihat prestasi dari segi aspirasi, harapan rakyat,” kata beliau.
Continue reading “DAP: Pakatan perlu adakan kajian prestasi separuh penggal”

By Tunku Abdul Aziz

The very idea that the headman of the MACC be accorded a status equivalent to that of the Inspector-General of Police was so hilarious that I, a grown man, was driven to sobbing uncontrollably before I doubled up, laughing my head off. I have, in my lifetime, been through many strange and unusual situations, but I must confess to a sense of incredulity that members of the Anti-Corruption Advisory Board headed by former Chief Justice Tun Abdul Hamid Mohamad were prepared to risk their collective reputation by putting this recommendation forward. It is absurdity personified.

The other recommendations, including the establishment of a statutory commission on appointments, and the need to have interrogation rooms equipped with CCTV cameras, must rank as among the most facile suggestions ever made by a group of people who lay claim to expert knowledge and experience of a level considered sufficient to justify their being appointed to the advisory board.

In the event, by their earth-shattering recommendations, they have confirmed what I have known all along: they know nothing about fighting corruption or, for that matter, the chief commissioner, if he had to be “advised” on what equipment was needed to be put in place to make the interrogation process more open and transparent, then he has no business to be there in the first place. I make no apology for using the word interrogation in relation to the methods adopted by the MACC when dealing with witnesses. The word interview is yet to be part of the MACC’s corruption fighting lexicon.
Continue reading “Inspector-General of MACC: Have we gone mad?”

Malaysian Insider
By Asrul Hadi Abdullah Sani
May 29, 2010

KOTA BARU, May 29 — Pakatan Rakyat (PR) leaders used dire forecasts of a gloomy future if there are no subsidy cuts to warn that voting for Barisan Nasional (BN) in the next general election would lead the country to bankruptcy.

A government minister this week had predicted Malaysia could be bankrupt by 2019 if it does not begin to cut subsidies for petrol, electricity, food and other staples, which cost RM74 billion last year. But the Najib administration is waiting for public feedback before deciding on actual cuts.

DAP leader Lim Kit Siang said it was not subsidies but BN’s corruption and abuse of power that has led the country to current financial crisis.

“I cannot imagine if DAP, PKR or PAS had made the announcement that country will be bankrupt by 2019. If we did, Umno would have labelled us as anti-nationalist and traitors. We probably would have been locked up in ISA and given free food.

“Remember Vision 2020? We were supposed to become a developed nation by 2020 but unfortunately one year before 2020, we are already bankrupt,” he told a crowd last night in Tanah Merah, a two-hour drive from the Kelantan state capital.

Lim was one of many PR leaders in the state speaking at ceramahs ahead of the PKR convention this weekend. Continue reading “Vote BN for bankruptcy, warns Pakatan”