don’t they ever think first?
Post on Feb.14, 2007
oh boy! i was right. 1 1/2 years ago i had described this move as silly and now… the minister himself agreed.
what am i talking about? the move by the then home minister to offer lucky draw prizes (which include myvi car, motorcycles, tv, etc) to people to encourage them to change their old IC to mykad. the new home minister, radzi, described this action (the contest) as silly and is withdrawing the contest.
Radzi said it was irresponsible of Malaysians to want to be given something for what they must do for their own country.
come on, who started it? the ex home minister himself! not that the rakyat (malaysians) wanted it. so when the contest was there, of course you can’t blame them for hoping. it was the gomen that was silly to offer the contest.
He said it would be embarrassing if the world knew that Malaysians would not do anything unless there was something to gain from it.
well, that’s the attitude of most malaysians. however, in this instance, it’s the gomen who had to be blamed when they set up this contest to encourage people to change to mykad. it is they themselves who think that malaysians would not do anything unless there was something to gain.
now the embarrassment fell on the home ministry when they are withdrawing the contest!
in the same article, the other ministry that should hid their face in embarrassment is the transport ministry. they had cancelled the ’shoot, send and win’ contest organised by the road and transport dept (JPJ).
Chan had announced that a reward of RM150 for the best picture, RM100 for second best and RM50 for third best would be given each day during the period for helping bring traffic culprits to book.
at that time, the malaysian syariah lawyers association and the bar council had questioned the wisdom implementing of this contest but oh no, the ministry didn’t listen, just like the home ministry didn’t listen to me when i mentioned the lucky draw contest was silly. (ahem).
what does all this tells you? that our gomen is forever making knee-jerk decisions without putting on their thinking cap!
UPDATED: it appears in big bold headline in today’s star paper (hardcopy) - ’stop the rewards’, while the online version says ‘home minister: mykad draw is off’. home minister, radzi said it is ’silly and rubbish’. well, didn’t i had that feeling when the lucky draw was introduced 1 1/2 years ago it? why then, the ex home minister didn’t?
and here is the part about the other stupid ministry stuff – the ’shoot, send and win’ contest.
Filed in government, malaysia
February 14th, 2007 on 10:37 AM
then who get the MyVi? Isn’t it "budgeted".
lucia: well the home minister said they will sell the prizes and donated the money to charity.
February 14th, 2007 on 1:56 PM
Chan Kong Choy should now announce a prize of RM15,000 for the swiftest MatRempit, RM10,000 for second fastest and RM5,000 for third fastest would be given each day. In this way, the roads will be soon be cleared of those speedsters because dozens of crashed MatRempits will be brought to hospitals or better still, to mortuaries every minute of the day. This is also much cheaper than having them parachute over the north pole at the expense of the unfortunate taxpayer.
lucia: haha. that sounds like a good idea. how do we propose it to chan?
February 14th, 2007 on 3:13 PM
so it would be silly if the honorable home minister is NOT sacked. shame shame ( xcept these people have none…
lucia: you mean the ex home minister right? sacked? no way. this is malaysia bodoh and as you said they have no shame, so no sacking for sure.
February 14th, 2007 on 6:44 PM
All that hype, it is just so typical of our ministers, always trying to do things the easiest way without using their brains. Wasting taxpayers money
lucia: yes indeed, mae. regarding the heading i put here in my post, methink i should respond with "since when do our ministers think?"
February 14th, 2007 on 9:53 PM
Also shows you how much ministers’ words are worth these days, doesn’t it? And who is ’silly and rubbish’ exactly? The ministry that is chasing its own tail? The ex home minister? Or did he mean the Rakyat?
lucia: yep. we no longer trust in our ministers’ words lah. maybe this present home minister did in a way hinted the rakyat was the silly one. notice the first quote i quoted – "it was irresponsible of Malaysians to want to be given something for what they must do for their own country."
February 14th, 2007 on 10:55 PM
Don’t get it wrong -the mistake was realised not because of any silliness of the ideas themselves alone -but 500 000 citizens didn’t apply for the all-essential all-sophisticated but really underutilised Mycards ! Only 1 out of the 8 functions of the e-card has been pput to use. No threat or incentives can erase the irrationality and wasteful switch to pretty (but) useless Mycards !
lucia: oh well, to me that is another matter – about 500 000 people not applying for mykad. to me, it was still the idea that was silly. what mistakes you mean btw? mistake of offering the lucky draw? so you think they think it was a mistake to offer the lucky draw because so few people applied? well ok maybe yes but still the idea of a lucky draw to attract people to apply is silly.
February 14th, 2007 on 11:43 PM
Ong, the calling the MyCard as pretty is diputeable even. Physically it doesn’t feel flat as you can feel the too prominent embedded chip sandwiched inside. One expects that to be unpalpable. The backpeddling now resembles something of a "burok siku" on the part of the Gomen on his matter. For Radzi to excuse the matter on the previous minister is easy as is that invoking of "duty". A lot of things can be swept into and under the name of duty, don’t we know that?!
lucia: er.. i thought ong used the word ‘pretty’ to mean ‘very’ (though i wonder why he put in ‘but’
. you know like when people say "the whether today is pretty bad".
February 15th, 2007 on 10:29 AM
It is simple. The ex home minister dropped a soap and waited for the rakyat to bend over and pick it up. And the present home minister now got the rakyat from behind, without prior notice.
lucia: looks like that way eh.