Friday 29 Mar 2024
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KUALA LUMPUR: Perkasa president Datuk Ibrahim Ali yesterday established a few key performance indicators (KPI) criteria for Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak, Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin and the entire Malaysian Cabinet.

Pointing out that Najib had established KPIs for government ministries and government-linked companies (GLC), Ibrahim said no one has created a KPI to monitor the nation’s top leaders.

Thus, Perkasa has taken it upon itself to be the monitoring body, said Ibrahim during a press conference after its 4th annual general meeting yesterday.

“We want to ensure that in the context of Malay and bumiputera economic equity, it will reach at least 30% by 2020. Secondly, we want to ensure that there are no more financial leakages in the government.

“The eradication of such leakages is something that the rakyat will welcome. It will make them happy, especially in the light of recent situations, including all issues pertaining to the rising cost of living plaguing the rakyat,” he said.

Ibrahim further pointed out that the public will not be so angry or upset with the government if they observe frugality in spending and a reduction in financial leakages, and if the ministers share in their burden.

“The people have to bear the burden of inflation and so on. That is why they’re angry. The average Joe looks at the government spending so much on unnecessary things, whereas there were so many price hikes and subsidy cuts recently. This stirs agitation among the people,” he said.

However, he added, if the government conducted subsidy cuts and at the same time, government leaders and politicians sacrificed their personal comforts and spent the budget wisely and frugally, it would not be a problem.

“When you speak of subsidy cuts and tariff increases, the rakyat will monitor how you are spending your money. If you control it and spend it wisely, they won’t get angry,” said a very sensible Ibrahim.

Earlier in his speech, Ibrahim said he would amend the NGO’s constitution with regards to its district branches, where each district will match a parliamentary constituency. “Due to Perkasa’s growing membership, we will change our constitution today [yesterday] to create a Perkasa chapter in each parliamentary constituency nationwide.

“InsyaAllah by next year, Perkasa’s wira and wirawati (heroes and heroines) will have their own AGM [annual general meeting]. And if our finances allow it, we will hold a two-day AGM so that all matters that need to be debated, will be debated,” he said.

Ibrahim then claimed that Barisan Nasional and Umno could never have retaken Kedah and retained Perak without the assistance that Perkasa mobilised for the coalition.

“We mobilised around 20,000 in Kedah and around 15,000 in Perak. With our assistance, Umno and BN managed to regain Kedah and retain Perak, where they lost back in 2008.

“Selangor is still under the grips of the other side because Selangor BN brushed us off when we offered to help them,” he said.

However, Ibrahim did admit that the only reason Perkasa supported BN was because it believed that Umno is still the only party capable of protecting Malay rights, although he warned Najib that he will be far more vocal from this day forth.

“I know a lot of ministers blasted me, but I just kept quiet because I wanted to make sure BN wins the next election, that Umno still remains in power.

“We didn’t want to gamble the Malays, so we supported Umno since we don’t believe the other side will defend Malay rights. However, to tell you the truth, we were not happy with the government and how things were conducted.

“Now, since the 14th general election is still far away, I will be more vocal and if Umno becomes too weak to protect Malay interests, Perkasa will rise and take over Umno’s role!” said Ibrahim to the roar of the delegates.


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This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily, on December 23, 2013.


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