Najib’s weak hand leads to a lazy Malaysian Parliament

Parliament, it has been announced, will not sit on the eve of Deepavali, the 25th of October. This was requested by Prime Minister Najib Razak, under pressure from MP for Ipoh Barat M Kulasegaran.

Why did Najib rush to agree to this rather - at the risk of drawing fire from our Indian readers - unreasonable request? It is comical to see BN leaders tripping all over themselves to seem friendly to the Indian community here.

But the fact is, there is no justification for this arbitrary holiday for Parliament. Nobody else gets a holiday on Deepavali eve, so why should MPs? In fact, MPs should work harder than anybody else, as they are living off taxpayer funds.

Kulasegaran is remiss in requesting unreasonable holidays to suit himself. If he likes, he could always take the day off. Thanks to Kulasegaran, those questions which were supposed to answered on the 25th of October will now be answered in written form, and cannot be debated. Has anyone thought of this?

But to be fair to Kula, last week other Pakatan Rakyat parliamentarians had also criticised the scheduling of a sitting on the eve of the festival as a lack of awareness among government officials in scheduling events.

Again, what about the bankers, the civil servants, the factory workers and the rest of the labour force in the country? Do they get Deepavali eve off, too?

Samy also rushes for a piece of the limelight

Another one to ride on the Deepavali bandwagon is Mr S Samy Vellu, formerly president of MIC and now Special Envoy to India and South Asia. In case, any one should remember his ministerial status, pay and perks, and ask what he is doing in return for the cushy position, Samy rushed to announced he had "secured" RM10billion of projects from Bangladesh.

"Both governments (Malaysia and Bangladesh) sealed the MOU after more than six months of negotiations. It is indeed a proud achievement for Malaysia," Bernama reported Samy as saying.

But if these are Memorandum of Understanding, then they are not at all contracts sealed by consideration, terms and conditions. MOUs are mere gentlemen's agreements, which can be broken without the blink of an eye on either side.

It is bad enough that Malaysia, due to its non-homogeneous cultural nature, has more holidays than almost any other country in the world. Holidays translate to non-productive days which in a competitive global environment, the country really does not need more off.

As for Najib, this latest episode shows him up as a weak leader, giving in to every passing whine. It is bad enough that we have two national days in a year. Now we have special, extra, holidays for MPs which nobody else gets!

Malaysia Chronicle