2013 Cabinet Members

My dearest friends,

Screening through the list of new Cabinet members in a local newspaper the other day, I’m relieved to come across the name of one Cabinet Member, Idris Jala. I’m pleased he’s given permission to continue his commendable work at Pemandu.

Dear friends,

What does Idris did at Pemandu to gain trust and respect of Malaysians? Prior Pemandu, all government policies are run by PTD officers through various ministries and its agencies. Due to its nature, these government machineries are huge and ramifications with all its networks of agencies and other machineries. Due to its size, there are occasions where actions of all these ministries are not align to the same objective, and in some extreme cases, there are contradictory to each other. One classic example is foreign worker issues. The KDN is trying all sorts of endeavour to try to restrict the number of foreign workers for social and security reasons, whereas MITI is trying effortlessly to satisfy the needs for foreign labour for economic reasons. There is lack of focus, due to its enormous size of government machineries and they did not work in tandem in achieving a clear set of goal. They drown in their own ministerial administrative needs and pressure. They are becoming less and less effective for an obvious reason.

Then come Idris Jala and his Pemandu Team. What did Pemandu did? Pemandu does not have any legal backing in its existence. Pemandu does not own a single project on its own. Then what is it that Pemandu did that has significantly transformed the government approach and having a direct impact to the bottom line? Well, what Pemandu did is purely Management. Pemandu offer Management to our government sectors, to mention it in its most simplistic term. What Pemandu has done is just they are offering Leadership to the government sector that has long been lost in our government machineries. They lead – organize, coordinate, plan, and monitor the execution. That’s the true value of management. As I’ve mentioned earlier, Pemandu does not own any single project. They just put everything in a framework, compiling all the high impact projects (owned by other government agencies and ministries), put it in a clear framework, set a target for everybody, and monitor the execution.  This is what I call the power of management. Management gives value to any institution. Without management, everything will fail.

Other names worth to mention here is the inclusion of Dato’ Paul Low, former Amnesty International President.  I am glad that Najib has sees integrity as an important agenda in his administration post GE 13. Integrity will gives huge influence for our economy to grow in next 5 years. Having said that, I truly think it will be very big challenge, (if not impossible) for Najib in fighting corruption. Honestly, I think Najib is a reformer. He sees the important for UMNO to change, to rebrand, and to rejuvenate to access to the younger generation of Malaysia. His speech is in line with the mantra of the day – liberals, transparent, democratic, integrity. He is not the problem. The problem is his party. UMNO has been all but the opposite of todays mantra, UMNO is autocratic in its approach, corrupt, chauvinist, and narrow minded and highly right wing-ultra malay.

UMNO MUST change to survive. The change need to be done NOW. Islam is the only way out for UMNO.