Cabinet ministers will be given the right to determine the need for deputies with regard to their respective ministries, said Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad.
“We do not know how many deputy ministers will be required.
“We will give the ministers the right to determine whether they need deputy ministers or not,” he told a press conference in Petaling Jaya today.
Mahathir was asked when he would announce the rest of the cabinet ministers and deputy ministers.
Thirteen ministers have been appointed so far.
The ministries are women, family and community development, home affairs, finance, defence, education, rural development, economic affairs, housing and local government, transport, communications and multimedia, human resource, agriculture and agro-based industry and health.
On another matter, Mahathir said a judgment on the new government should not be passed in haste.
He was responding to a question that foreign investors were concerned about the new administration's “inconsistent” economic policies.
“We cannot be afraid of inconsistency because we have been in government only three weeks. So you can’t assess us. We want to be consistent. We will be very business friendly.
“It doesn’t matter which country they (investors) are from. Local or foreign, they will be treated the same way,” he said.
Mahathir also spoke about his meeting with India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi yesterday.
"I had a very good meeting with Modi.
"I thought I had never met him (but) he brought down a picture showing I was having a discussion with him way back in 19-something, at that time he was not the prime minister," Mahathir said.
He said they spoke about exchanging technology and trade and have invited each other to invest in their respective countries.
"We invited them to invest in Malaysia and they invited us to invest in India, in many things, certainly in technology, also they think there is more room for trade than before," he said.
Mahathir is also expected to pay a courtesy visit to Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on June 10. - Mkini
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