By Kee Thuan Chye
Yahoo! News
13.11.2013
Do we have half-past-six ministers running the country? Well, from the utterances of at least three ministers in the last few days, that seems to be so.
Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Shahidan Kassim put his foot in his mouth when he declared in Parliament last Monday that the electricity and water bills incurred by the prime minister’s official residence in Putrajaya last year – amounting to a staggering RM2.55 million – was among the lowest in the world. And how did he come to this conclusion? Did he make comparisons with other countries?
No, he came to this conclusion based on his own “observation”!
Woooh! RM2.55 million of taxpayers’ money spent and that’s what we get? A personal observation by one of our top public servants that it’s relatively peanuts?
Asked by Opposition MPs for comparisons with the utility bills of the residences of other countries’ leaders, he said he did not have them. “If you want the specifics, you will need to give me time to collect the details,” he said. Which clearly showed he was simply tembak-ing (shooting in the dark). Continue reading “Are We Being Served by Half-Past-Six Ministers?”