Screenshots: "Silly & Rubbish"... and the wags' field day

UPDATED VERSION. January 29, when PM Abdullah Ahmad Badawi made a frontal attack on bloggers, he was quoted as saying:

"I know there are people who are trying their best to ridicule me. They make a mountain out of a molehill. They just want to rubbish me."

Apparently, rubbish there was, and the 'THEY' had to come from the Home Affairs Minister, who is also the secretary-general of the Prime Minister political party, Umno.

As the rubbish story goes, the new Home Affairs Minister (Radzi Sheikh Ahmad) had cancelled the "Jom Tukar dan Menang" MyKad Lucky Draw campaign launched during the time of his predecessor (Azmi Khalid) whose portfolio was changed during last year's Valentine's Day cabinet reshuffle.

Radzi called the lucky draw "silly and rubbish".

That the "Rubbish" story came up on another Valentine's Day, yesterday, is very uncanny.

UPDATE via Star SMS Alert dispatched at 21:38hr Feb 15:

"Azmi Khalid agrees with the decision to scrap the raffle draws."

UPDATE via Bernama, timestamped 21:51hr Feb 15:

Azmi Khalid said he had postponed the MyKad lucky draw long before Radzi Sheikh Ahmad took over as Home Affairs Minister.

He said he was transfered to his current ministry in February 2006 and forgot to inform Radzi of the postponement.

According to Bernama, others in the Home Affairs Ministry also forgot to do so.

How the 'rubbish' began

The "Jom Tukar dan Menang" lucky draw was announced by Azmi on August 24, 2005 when he was still Home Affairs Minister. Azmi was re-designated the Natural Resources and Environment Minister a year ago when the PM reshuffled his Cabinet on February 14.

The lucky draw, which was to have offered various prizes totalling RM300,000 with the first prize being a Myvi car valued at RM50,000, was targeted at the 16 million applicants and holders of MyKad before November 30, 2005.

Two draws were held at the end of September and October, 2005, each offering 80 prizes. However, the last draw scheduled for end of November was not held until today.

theSun spot on

Free-paper theSun was right in what it said in the editorial today, titled: Think, then announce decisions, that

While the incumbent home minister may have announced the decision after prior consultation with his predecessor, the impression that is given is that he had not done so and the wags are having a field day.

Actually, theSun has also been very witty by ranking itself among the wags. It gave the "New Minister rubbishing Old Minister" circus two frontpage leads on two consecutive days:

February 14: Ministries suffer withdrawal symptoms! (Radzi cancels silly lucky draw for MyKad applicants)

February 15: Perlis MB: Not right to say MyVi draw 'silly and rubbish'

That said, it's heartening to note that theSun has put things in their perspectives, and we should look at them from several angles:

1 ) Will the 'Minister-rubbishing-Minister' issue, a circus royale, reflect badly on our public administration?
2 ) Are Minister Radzi and Minister Azmi, both from Malaysia's tiniest state Perlis, caught in the midst of conflicting decisions by their bureaucrats?

3 ) Giving away MyVi and other prizes as carrots to the citizens for converting their ICs to MyKads, had it been implemented with sufficient thought put into it?

4 ) Or was it, the lucky draw and all, merely one of those utterances by the politicians that, borrowing theSun's words, "somehow became a programme involving the public"?

5 ) The lucky draw, irrespective of whether the cost of the prizes were borne by the government, did the implementing agency follow "the usual standards of auditing and good governance"? Can everything be accounted for?

6 ) The question of fair play. The thousands of people who had come forward to participate in the lucky draw didn't ask for the prizes. It was the Government who was willing to give in the first place.

What do we have for now? The government (to be precise, under the present Abdullah Administration) has introduced the lucky draw. And now, the same government (to be precise, it's still under the present Abdullah Administration) had cancelled it.

"'What rubbish!" the people may yell.

Moral of the story?

Moral of the story? Perlis Menteri Besar Shahidan Kassim, who is also the chief for the state Umno, where Radzi and Azmi come from, has this to say to Bernama:

"He should not describe the earlier measure as stupid. If he wants to change what Azmi did, then do so but do not call it stupid and rubbish," he said.

"I don't agree with this at all," he added.

Shahidan said being the minister who took over Azmi's portfolio, Radzi should not have opposed all action carried out earlier.

By the way, rubbishing thy predecessor, incidentally, draws an eerie parallel to the neo-political culture of how Dr Mahathir has been demonised by people who advised, or are advising, his anointed successor. I don't invent this observation and I am just borrowing repeated public testimonies made by the former PM at his press conferences I attended over the last eight months.

* * *

And the words keep blowing in the head-wind... "I know there are people who are trying their best to ridicule me. They make a mountain out of a molehill. They just want to rubbish me."

And the tail-wind billows... "Jom Tukar dan Menang".

Comments

Agree with Perlis MB.

Radzi forgot that he's speaking on behalf of BN, which was, ironically, criticising BN, indirectly.

What's said had been said, but what's supposed to be done hasn't been done. So how?

Rant in http://niamah.blogspot.com/ style?

Posted by: Vertebrato | February 15, 2007 09:55 PM

give them enough rope ... and they will surely hang themselves...

Posted by: monzie | February 15, 2007 10:08 PM

well... one minister say ths... another minister say that... both of them came from the same party, doesnt tht sound like RUBBISH government ? mr radzi.. come on wht is RM 300,000 plus of stuff compare wht u and ur friends already [ DELETED ] ...

Posted by: adieu1999 | February 15, 2007 11:03 PM

the sun said "think then announce decision". well i asked that too - "don't they ever think first?" in my blog.

no wonder we are consider as malaysia bodoh.

Posted by: lucia | February 16, 2007 08:44 AM

The Government made their promise and they should be held accountable to fulfil their promise, no matter hwo stupid it is.

If they cannot fulfil a simple promise to give RM 350,000 worth of prizes, how can u espect them to fulfil even bigger promises like combating graft, RMK 9, Wawasan 2020 or other large scaled long termed promises?????

And whats wrong with giving away the prizes? Its just around 400k only...make the rakyat happy lah. [DELETED] have taken so much but they dont want to give back any. So stingy!

And the Menteri has clearly forgotten our Rukunegara, "Kesopanan dan Kesusilaan".

Posted by: holiday | February 16, 2007 09:57 AM

This whole story feels sick. I'm so torn about which one to be swipe at.

On one side, I despise the fact that a promise can be undone. On the other, I agree with Radzi that they are all stupid!

Friends, can you help me make a stand here?

Posted by: GRex | February 16, 2007 10:37 AM

WTF these people wield with EXECUTE power go on PR show! If there is something wrong, use your executive power to FIX it, not playing PR show on the paper. Niamah!

In addition, WTF with the MSM let the government servants use the media for PR show.

Posted by: moo_t | February 16, 2007 11:03 AM

According to a very close friend of mine who is attached to a consulting firm that works with JPN on the MyKad project, the MyVi that was supposed to be given out as the Grand Prize is currently being used by a JPN officer, and this has been on for more than 1 year. Well, even if they want to call the lucky draw off, they are not suppose to use the car for personal use. The act of calling off the lucky draw really shows how fickle minded they are.

Posted by: kacho | February 16, 2007 11:07 AM

kacho, I think you better substantiate your claim by providing the name of the officer.

Posted by: azk | February 16, 2007 06:31 PM

so far under AAB, all i see is rubbish. What has he done so far, besides increasing toll, increase fuel prices, food prices going up..tell me something positive the govt has done since AAB took over.I have searched and can't find any.Corruption..how many has his govt taken to tasks since he came into power,despite is call for anti corruption. Talk only is cheap

Posted by: art chan | February 19, 2007 11:13 AM

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"Silly & Rubbish"... and the wags' field day

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