KUALA LUMPUR: Ministers and deputy ministers in the Pakatan Harapan (PH) government must avoid issuing statements that can give negative impact to the nation, government and people, media and communications advisor in the Prime Minister’s Office, Datuk A. Kadir Jasin said.
Without referring to anyone, Kadir said they must think very deeply the effects of their statements and should issue them when necessary only.
“Today it is a new government, only (prime minister) Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad and (Home Minister) Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin have the experience of becoming a minister while the others may have the experience of being a chief minister or menteri besar only, but not as a federal minister.
“So, if there are ministers who do not seem to be smart in giving statements or do not think deep enough before making a statement, getting scoldings and so on, they must learn from their mistakes, what they go through will only make them wiser,” he told Bernama after visiting the Malaysian National News Agency (Bernama), here today.
He was asked to comment on the allegation that there were statements allegedly issued by ministers and deputy ministers which appeared to be capable of affecting foreign capital flow into the country.
Kadir said as an experienced journalist, he advised ministers and deputy ministers to plan their statements well and to refrain from making statements that they were less certain of.
Meanwhile, he said the media must play their role fairly when reporting news on the 10 PH pledges which should have been fulfilled within a period of 100 days so that the people can understand the real situation.
He said the PH made the pledges when it was in the opposition and they did not have detailed information on the things to be implemented.
“It is not that they deliberately made the pledges and then did not implement them, but they had made the pledges based on the facts available to them at that time but when they won the general election and became the government, they realised that the projections that they had made were not accurate and there were pledges that could not be implemented immediately,” he said.
He added that 100 days were not a lengthy period for the government to implement everything, yet some of the pledges had already been implemented.
In its manifesto for the 14th General Election, the PH had made 10 pledges in 100 days including to abolish the Goods and Services Tax (GST) and take measures to reduce the cost of living, stabilise the price of petrol and introduce petrol-based subsidy, to abolish unreasonable debt imposed on Felda settlers, and introduce EPF contributions for housewives.
Meanwhile, during his visit to Bernama, Kadir was also given a briefing on the news agency by Bernama Chief Executive Officer Datuk Zulkefli Salleh.
Also present were Bernama Chairman Datuk Seri Azman Ujang, Editor-in-Chief Datuk Zakaria Abd Wahab as well as other top management staff. --Bernama