NEW YORK: Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad yesterday said it was tough running the government with inexperienced junior officers.
These officers, he said, had replaced senior officers who had abused their positions in the previous government.
“The previous government had disrupted the administrative machinery,” he told a packed auditorium at the Asia Society building, here, today.
He said just like in any democratic country, the powers given to the legislative, executives and judiciary were separated.
“The executive has to take orders from the elected government but it is limited to implementing projects and programmes and the like.
“What had happened is that in the last five to 10 years, the administrative organisation had been subverted that they became part of the political party of the previous government.”
Dr Mahathir said there were those, especially senior government officers, who had actively supported and even campaigned for the previous government.
“It is not something we can live with and we had to change.
“And so we spent a lot of time either removing or putting in cold storage many of those who openly supported the previous government.
“We have to replace them with new people. In the government itself, we had to choose among the more junior members.
“Unfortunately, the junior members are not versed in administration so we have a tough time carrying out the administration of the country.”
On the positive side, however, is the success of placing professionals to run institutions or companies owned by the government.
Dr Mahathir said they were previously managed by people from Barisan Nasional (BN).
“But now we have decided that we should let professional people manage all these institutions and companies.
“That is going on quite well. We have identified people not committed to any party who are mainly in business or heading some other organisations not committed to the previous government.”
Dr Mahathir also shared how the transition of power had gone smoothly.
“There were many delays in announcing the (then) opposition’s poll scores but in the end they had to accept the (then) opposition had won.
“They gave in rather nicely without any attempt to frustrate us.
“There were some things happening in the background.
“They were trying to form some kind of coalition with a few other parties, including the Islamic party with the idea they could achieve a majority and set up an Islamic government.
“But in that they failed as Msians are pragmatic as they do not like some radical changes to take place in the country.”