Our second Prime Minister Tun Abdul Razak passed away 38 years ago. Today’s printed and internet media carried a touching and good article titled “Remembering my father, Tun Razak” written by Datuk Seri Nazir Razak, his youngest son and present CEO of CIMB group. A few friends who have read the article commented to me that the article should be a must read for the Cabinet members as it contains some necessary and good reminders for those in governance. I concur with their views and hope that the Prime Minister and his Cabinet will always remember some of the values which the late Tun Razak had embraced. The first value that Cabinet members must remember is to be prudent when it comes to use of public funds. Tun Razak’s refusal to build a swimming pool at the then official residence of the Prime Minister and the anecdotes about how prudent he was in spending public money shows his strong and sincere commitment to being frugal as a custodian of public funds. This is certainly a value which the Cabinet must emphasize and embrace. Datuk Nazir wrote that his father in rejecting his and his siblings’ request for the building of a swimming pool at the residence had thundered “What will the people think?” This is the question that the Prime Minister and the Cabinet members must always ask themselves before making any decision so as to ensure that they will always remember the trust placed upon them by the people. Undoubtedly, if the Cabinet members had always asked themselves this question, then the government would not have approved for the Prime Minister’s wife to use a government jet to attend the women summit in Quatar when she was invited on a personal basis. Neither would any minister throw any lavish birthday party at a time when the people had been asked to tighten their belts. Nazir Razak has also touched on the New Economic Policy introduced by his late father. Nazir must be commended for his honest and forthright views when he wrote: The debate on the NEP rages on today. I myself have publicly remarked that something has gone awry in its implementation. The fixation on the quotas and the seemingly easy route to unimaginable wealth for a select few has created an intra-ethnic divide in class and status, while fuelling inter-ethnic tensions. Both these developments serve to undermine, if not completely negate, the over-arching goal of Tun Razak’s NEP – strengthening national unity. The government cannot deny that not only the NEP has not strengthened national unity, the continued silence of the Prime Minister in the face of growing extreme and racist voices has also caused deterioration of national unity.
Posted on: Tue, 14 Jan 2014 08:28:48 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015