Enough of blaming BN, move on and do your best, former minister tells PH
A former minister today urged Pakatan Harapan to stop pointing fingers at the former Barisan Nasional (BN) government for every ill and move on.
Nancy Shukri said in the last parliamentary session, almost every minister from PH was pointing fingers at the past government.
“It is okay to hear that, but when you hear that everyday, you really need to move on. People want to know your plans, what you want to do.
“Don’t just say ‘ask Najib’. Hey, you are the government now. The rakyat has expectations. I am a rakyat myself. I want to know what is the government doing now?
“I expect them to do their best, and to be good at it,” she said at a forum titled ‘A New Malaysia – The Way Ahead’ at Sunway University here today.
Also present were Lembah Pantai MP Fahmi Fadzil and Umno supreme council member Zambry Abdul Kadir.
The Batang Sadong MP was also of the view that the PH government was new, and therefore must be given the chance to perform, and that people should “not criticise them for the sake of criticising”.
She said the BN government which had been in power for the past 60 years had gone through a lot, and had made many mistakes.
“It is my third term as an MP. Being in government, a minister and an MP is not easy. We are trying to adapt to the new situation to be fair to the government. We (will) give them time. But we cannot keep hearing them putting the blame on BN continuously.
“You need to move on and do what you feel should be done. Forget about looking for mistakes that have been made. You improve. You have to show proof you are capable and that you are professional,” she said.
The Sarawak MP also lamented how she was still hearing replies such as “we are still studying” and “we will set up a committee” to questions she had posed in Parliament.
She recalled that when she was a minister, she would study the replies given to her before they went out.
“Don’t give me that answer that you still want to survey, or that you want to set up committees. If others are getting fed up, so am I.
“I still hear that, and I want to hear something new. Move on. We are with you,” she said.
Nancy noted that while she was no longer with BN, but with Gabungan Parti Sarawak, there was a need to be “friendly but firm”.
Meanwhile, to a question from the floor on whether there was really a new Malaysia, when the prime minister and members of the Council of Eminent Persons (CEP) were old faces, Fahmi said it was new.
“I think it is really new. I am new. It is a new cohort. We can bring something new. The creation of a new Malaysia.
“As for the prime minister (Dr Mahathir Mohamad), I would say he is the same but also different. I don’t feel afraid of him like how some Umno fellows were afraid of him.
“It is different, because you see how a 93-year-old is more active on social media compared with, say, 22-year-old Batu MP P Prabakaran. It is a bit more nuanced than that,” said the first term MP.
The forum was moderated by Professor James Chin, who is director of the Asia Institute at the University of Tasmania.
Source: Free Malaysia Today
This article first appeared in the Free Malaysia Today on August 29, 2018
