Deputy Finance Minister Ahmad Maslan's refusal to entertain a barrage of questions had irked a journalist, who questioned his silence.
"Why can't a deputy minister answer these kind of questions?" asked the journalist.
In response, Ahmad Maslan (left) said: "I have frequently talked about these issues."
He added that he would be participating in a live talk show on TV1 tonight on issues such as the goods and services tax (GST) and other economic matters.
At a press conference earlier, journalists tried to grill the deputy minister regarding the 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB), Global Financial Integrity Report and the GST.
Ahmad Maslan, who was speaking to reporters after launching the Malaysia Conference on Innovation and Entrepreneurship Education, remained tightlipped and insisted, "Let us focus on today's topic."
Later, journalists tried again but to no avail.
After several attempts to chase after the issues, one journalist then asked about the weekly cabinet meeting, but received a "No" in response.
He later added that he “did not know what they (cabinet) discuss” as he is not a cabinet member.
‘Introduce ‘Entrepreneurship’ subject from secondary school’
In the same press conference, the deputy minister suggested that the government to introduce the ‘Entrepreneurship’ subject right from secondary school, in an effort to create more entrepreneurs in the country and achieve high-income nation in the future.
Apart from that, he said, learning from the Chinese who are generally adept at business, is also another dimension to improve the entrepreneurship in Malaysia.
“Chinese children, even though they are not taught entrepreneurship in the secondary school, they come home and go to their parents’ grocery shop to learn practical entrepreneurial skill.
“They help their parents at the grocery shops, factories, they go to their parents’ companies.
“But the Malay children are not like that. They catapult birds (melastik burung) under the palm trees. Bathe at waterfalls, bathe in drains. Until when can the Malays be entrepreneurs?” he asked.
The Umno information chief also said the the Chinese are ‘Bangsa Usahawan’ (entrepreneurial community), whereas Malays are Bangsa Makan Gaji (wage earners community) and Indians are Bangsa Professional (professional community).
“Malay should learn from the Chinese community, Indian should learn from the Chinese community,” he said.
As such, Ahmad Maslan suggested that the government to shorten the teaching time allocated to Geography and allocate them to the ‘Entrepreneurship’ subject.
“Open the world map, show the 200 countries (in the world), done. What else to learn in Geography?” wondered the Umno politician, adding that he had provided his suggestion to the Deputy Prime Minister and Education Minister Muhyiddin Yassin and Second Education minister Idris Yusof, and their response was “positive”.
He also stated the target for the programme is to produce “One Family, One Entrepreneur”.
“We have 7 million households, our target is 7 million entrepreneurs,” he said. - Malay Mail
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.