Will the Cabinet tomorrow issue directive to freeze all increases of salaries and allowances of GLCs and GLICs until economic recovery and to sack GLC and GLIC nominees who violate the Cabinet directive?

Tomorrow , will the Cabinet issue a directive to freeze all increases of salaries and allowances of Government-linked companies (GLCs) and Government-linked Investment Companies (GLICs) and to sack GLC and GLIC nominees who violate the Cabinet directive and present the Cabinet decision to Parliament on July 18 for parliamentary sanction?

The Prime Minister, Ismail Sabri, has many things on his plate tomorrow.

If he does not raise this issue, will there be Ministers who will do so to ensure that the Cabinet can set a good example of belt-tightening in these inflationary times?

Undoubtedly, one of the things on Ismail’s mind is the timing of the 15th General Election.

I have said that the the most important question in Malaysia today is not who will win the next general election, but whether Malaysia will become a failed state before Malaysia’s Centennial in four decades from now.

What is the use of winning the 15th General Election if the Malaysia continues to regress and lose out to more countries, ending up with Malaysia becoming a failed state before Malaysia’s Centennial in another four decades, even becoming a greater kleptocracy?

Is the Cabinet capable of leading the nation in this introspection of whether the country can get out of the trajectory of a kleptocracy and jump-start the country on a new trajectory to fulfil Malaysia’s potential to become a world-class great nation?

Is the Cabinet prepared to lead the nation in the national quest to seek the answer to the question: “What Went Wrong?” with Malaysian nation-building that we are losing out to more and more countries, relegating to the backstage whether politically, economically or educationally?

Probably, the greatest mistakes in Malaysian nation-building was in continuing the corruption, abuses of power and breaches of trust in the New Economic Policy (NEP) in 1990 until Malaysia became “kleptocracy at its worst” with the monstrous mega multi-billion 1MDB scandal instead of replacing it by a needs-based policy declaring a war against poverty regardless of race, religion or region.

Is the Cabinet prepared to lead to country to return to the nation-building policies and principles enshrined in our Constitution and Rukun Negara – constitutional monarchy, parliamentary democracy, separation of powers, rule of law, good governance, public integrity, war against corruption, respect for human rights, Islam as the religion of the nation and freedom of worship for all other religions and national unity from our multi-racial, multi-lingual, multi-religious and multi-cultural diversity where there are no first-class and second-class citizens whether based on race, religion or region?

The implosion in UMNO reveals that it is so difficult for Ministers, MPs and political leaders to differentiate between right from wrong and to condemn in no uncertain terms the monstrous mega multi-billion 1MDB scandal, corruption and even kleptocracy.

Even now, there is glorification of monstrous financial scandals, corruption and kleptorcracy as evident in the “Malu Apa BOSSku” campaign, which is against the very policies and principles of the Malaysian Constitution and Rukun Negara.

I support political economist Edmund Terence Gomez who said it is time for the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) to have an “arm’s length” relationship with the executive branch of the government, especially with regard to the appointments of the anti-graft agency’s top commissioners.

Several prominent politicians were implicated recently when a witness testified on the Ultra Kirana Sdn Bhd (UKSB) ledger during the corruption trial of Umno president Ahmad Zahid Hamidi.

Is the Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, Wan Junaidi Jaafar and the Special Adviser to the Prime Minister for Law and Human Rights Azalina Othman Said prepared to co-operate to produce the necessary legislation for the passage in the forthcoming Parliament beginning on July 18 for MACC to have an “arms length” relationship with the Executive?