by Sim Tze Tzin
According to a few local news report, Dato’ Seri Tiong King Sin, the MP of Bintulu has been appointed as the latest “Special Envoy with Ministerial status” to East Asia, as announced recently in Bintulu by the Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, Dato’ Seri Shahidan Kassim.
Prior to this, the Prime Minister appointed Dato’ Seri Jamaluddin Jarjis as the Special Ambassador to the United States, Dato’ Seri Ong Ka Ting as the Special Ambassador to the Republic of China and Dato’ Seri S Samy Velly as the Special Ambassador to India and South India in the infrastructure sector. All of them have political background and were afforded ministerial status. The result gained from these appointments is uncertain. These appointments of special envoys to the United States, China and India did not bring significant return on investment (ROI) to the country.
I
want to urge the Prime Minister to stop appointing these expensive Special Envoys immediately.
The appointment of Dato Seri Tiong raises questions. The Barisan Nasional government has to explain the rational for the appointment of Special Ambassador to handle East Asia’s affairs.
Malaysia already has good functioning diplomatic professionals working in East Asian countries like South Korea, Japan and Taiwan. From the international trade perspective, the country already has a Minister of International Trade and Industry (MITI) that is administrating all the commercial trades between those countries with Malaysia. So what is the tasks that these Special Envoys are responsible for? The BN Government should explain the need for these appointments, since we already have existing ministers and Ambassadors.
The second question is, what are the expertise of Dato Seri Tiong? Professionally, is he an East Asian geo-political expert? Is he an expert in East Asian economic and trade? Is this one of the political rewards given to him to compensate for the fact that he was not appointed as a minister in the current cabinet?
The most significant issue here is that the current Prime Minister’s administration continues to appoint special envoys and special advisers that all incurs even more government spending while adding extra financial burden to the country. Currently, the Prime Minister has 4 special envoys and 13 special advisors (many of them with ministerial status), making Dato Seri Najib the most “advised” Prime Minister in our history.
According to a parliament answer, a Special Ambassador is paid RM27,227.20 monthly salary, a salary even higher than Minister. Furthermore they also enjoy the same Ministerial allowance and benefits because of the added ministerial status. These Special Envoys are enjoying offices that is paid for by the government. Many of these Special Ambassadors are also allocated team of personal secretary, special officer, personal assistant and police escorts by the PDRM. They also often get to travel around the world. All of this cost a lot of tax payers’ money. Conservatively, these appointments of special officers will cost our government more than RM2million a year.
In the last Parliament session, I have filed a motion under Standing Motion Rule 66(9) at the committee stage of the Supply Bill 2014 to urge the Prime Minister’s Department to cut the salary of the Special Ambassadors totaling RM 980,179.20 (RM27,227.20 x 3 persons x 12 months). Although the motion was allowed to be debated by the Speaker of the House — a rare occurrence on its own, the motion was heavily opposed by the member of the ruling party and the motion was rejected.
With the tightening fiscal conditions in the country and federal debt that is approaching the 55% (of GDP) debt ceiling, do we really need the extra burden on appointing yet another special ambassador? The Prime Minister have recently announced austerity measures in its 11 steps to cut government spending. He should announce a further step twelve — abolish all paid positions of 4 Special Envoys and 13 Special Advisers under the Prime Minister’s Department.
***** Sim Tze Tzin is MP of Bayan Baru
