Rafidah: Forget Harapan's 100-day promise, let gov't function properly

INTERVIEW | Former minister Rafidah Aziz has asked the rakyat to "forget" the Pakatan Harapan government's 100-day deadline, and urged for the government to be allowed to function properly instead. 

This, according to her, is because positive changes do not happen overnight.

“If we forget about the 100 days (deadline), we can allow the government to function properly.

“It is important for the rakyat to understand, all this (measures) cannot happen overnight, there is no magic wand for it.

“We have to be reasonable, it took 10 years for all these things to happen and (while) we don’t want to take 10 years (to fix them), we don’t want to take just 100 days either.

“We don’t want any knee-jerk reactions,” she said in an interview with Malaysiakini.

Among the 10 election promises Harapan has pledged in its election manifesto, to complete within 100 days of forming the government are to abolish the goods and services tax (GST), abolish tolls, reinstate fuel subsidies, extend the Skim Peduli Sihat programme in Selangor, nationwide, and exempt loan repayments for PTPTN applicants earning less than RM4,000.

Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng has admitted that some of these short-term promises might be delayed in light of the country’s RM1 trillion debt level.

Three-track solution to resuscitate economy

The former international trade and industry minister has also mooted a three-track solution for resuscitating the national economy.

Calling them “panel tracks”, like the window blinds, she proposed that all three be implemented concurrently.

“One track is remedial, for things such as 1MDB and our debt problem.

“The next one is where wrongs are righted. It has to be done, am I right?

“The third one is planning forward based on what we have now,” she said.

Rafidah, who was an economics lecturer before joining politics, elaborated that the first and second tracks ought to be expedited in the present while the third was a more long-term measure.

“Some should have already been done now…(but we also need to) be looking at the system itself; systems pertaining to the law and order, pertaining to the administration itself.

“This is to find out where they have (previously) been easily circumvented,” she added.

Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad previously announced that improving the country’s economy was first on the agenda.

Almost immediately after winning government, he appointed a Council of Eminent Persons led by former finance minister Daim Zainuddin to advise the government on economic reforms.

The Institutional Reform Committee, led by retired Court of Appeal judge KC Vohrah, has also been set up to propose institutional reforms. -Mkini