SURELY MAHATHIR IS BECOMING RIDICULOUS – DROPPING ONE MINISTER ALSO MEANS ANOTHER CAPABLE PERSON GETS A SHOT AT DOING A BETTER JOB FOR MALAYSIA: YET MACHIAVELLI PM HIDES BEHIND ‘FIRING PEOPLE WON’T SOLVE ANYTHING’ – IS HE PROMISING LIFE-LONG EMPLOYMENT TO HIS CABINET, WHAT ABOUT CIVIL SERVANTS & OTHERS HE HAS ALREADY SACKED

DR Mahathir Mohamad will not be changing his cabinet members as he does not think that will solve anything.

“If I were to change a minister and take in a new one, I would have an all new (inexperienced) candidate. The present ministers (already) have one year of experience.

“I think if I get a new minister, I will have the task of getting him to adjust to a new job. He will probably not deliver either,” the prime minister told BFM in an interview this morning.

Dr Mahathir was responding to a question on whether he would reshuffle his cabinet and whether he would replace Education Minister Dr Maszlee Malik, who has been criticised for his performance.

But the 94-year-old PM said that he did not believe in replacing people to solve problems.

“New ministers don’t mean they are better as we have found out that a new prime minister also doesn’t mean it will be a good PM.

“That is why I’m not keen on solving my problems by changing people. I have changed people before. I stepped down and then I was asked to come back.”

As for education, Dr Mahathir said reform meant radical changes.

“Because of the growth in the number of students and teachers, the growth is not uniform whereby certain schools do well while others don’t.  Maybe this is because the quality of the teachers differs.

“What we are trying to do now is to get the best teachers to record the lessons and the other teachers to use the lessons prepared by the best teachers. This can be projected on the screens like (it is done in) language courses.”

On why he didn’t take up the education portfolio, Dr Mahathir said: “That didn’t happen because we promised that the PM should not have any other portfolios.”

Dr Mahathir reiterated that he was an “interim PM” when asked if he would be handing over power to PKR president Anwar Ibrahim.

“I promised that I will be an interim PM and I will do so. I’ll keep my promise.”

Although, he has often repeated that he would hand over to Anwar, the deadline for handover of office has been kept a secret.

“I have to make sure that I have solved most of the major problems before I hand over. A fixed period (to hand over) becomes very difficult for me to work.”

THE MALAYSIAN INSIGHT