Cabinet silence meant Cabinet cowardice and irresponsibility yesterday in not issuing any directive to freeze all increases of salaries and allowances of GLCs and GLICs top executives until economic recovery and to sack GLC and GLIC nominees who violate the Cabinet directive?

The Cabinet silence meant Cabinet cowardice and irresponsibility yesterday in not issuing any 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?

This is a great disappointment and show the limitations of Ismail Sabri as Prime Minister of Malaysia

The Cabinet cowardice is most reprehensible especially in these difficult times on high inflation in Malaysia and the world – to the extent that the Misery Index of old is again becoming fashionable.

It is also clear that the Cabinet is not 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 Malaysia to the back row whether politically, economically or educationally.

Malaysians, through political parties, NGOs, associations, youth organisations and student clubs, must carry out this national quest as to “What went wrong” in Malaysian nation-building where we failed to become a world-class great nation but is in danger of becoming a failed state like Sri Lanka before Malaysia’s Centennial in four decades’ time.

Malaysians must ask themselves whether the greatest mistake in Malaysian nation-building process 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 it possible for the country to return to the nation-building policies and principles enshrined in the Malaysian 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 and the BN Sabah Convention this Saturday, which are 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.