This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily on May 25, 2018

KUALA LUMPUR: Former international trade and industry minister Tan Sri Rafidah Aziz said she has been asked by Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad to come on board to help the new administration.

“Tun has asked me to come on board to do certain things,” Rafidah said in an interview with the BFM radio station yesterday.

“[There will be] no publicity. I work that way. It’s better that I work quietly and put in inputs where I feel I can.”

She said it was not important whether her suggestions were accepted or not.

“That’s besides the point. I will try my best to present some of the things I feel we need to do, moving forward.

Rafidah, who is AirAsia X Bhd chairman, was also asked about the recent allegation against the Malaysian Aviation Commission (Mavcom) made by AirAsia group chief executive officer Tan Sri Tony Fernandes.

Asked whether she knew the true story on the issue, she said: “I have a thick dossier.”

Fernandes had claimed in a video that he was under intense pressure after refusing to sack Rafidah, who had criticised the former Barisan Nasional government very strongly.

Fernandes said in the video, “Within 24 hours, we were summoned by Mavcom and told to cancel all those flights,” referring to 120 extra flights that AirAsia had announced — with reduced fares for the domestic flights —  during the election period.

Mavcom had described the claims as “baseless and malicious” and lodged a police report against Fernandes.

Rafidah, in yesterday’s interview, explained that AirAsia was trying to help voters return to places like Sabah to cast their votes.

“There’s nobody that should disallow that to happen. We did it at our own cost because we wanted to facilitate people,” she said.

“Sabah is not near. So nobody can really afford to fly just to vote. But they (voters) wanted to go back to exercise their democratic right. So, if anybody wanted to interfere with that, then that’s not right. We did what we needed for the country,” she added.

On another matter, Rafidah said she is in agreement with the new government’s plan to review mega infrastructure projects, citing abnormally high costs for some.

“Any project done by the government must be subjected to two tests — one, test of opportunity cost, the other is the test of cost and benefit,” she said.

Rafidah added that emphasis should not be placed on the 100-day timeline set by the government. “You cannot do things in 100 days. No country in the world can get things done in 100 days.

“I am more focused on who can work, the less talk the better,” she said.