HE MUST BE JOKING

Praise be to Allah Almighty, I finally managed to save some spare coins. Enough to get myself a new laptop but of course not enough to get me a Myvi unlike some one who managed to save pocket money from school days to purchase a diamond ring.  I am not a gadget freak but my old and trusted Vaio laptop from 2003,  finally breathed  its last 2 weeks ago,  after almost 11 years of faithful service. Wish I can say the same for some modern wives  that I know of.  

To start my first posting with my brand new HP Pavilion notebook, below is an excerpt of a speech given by the prime minister of Malaysia at the Commonwealth TH Club Lecture, in San Francisco, USA, on 22 September 2013.

“This policy package is accompanied by government and political transformation programmes, designed to reduce crime and corruption; improve education, infrastructure and public transport; and also to remove outdated and repressive laws, some of which date back to colonial times.

The work starts at home. Many Asian economies are affected by corruption, which crushes individual endeavour and harms social cohesion. Corruption not only suppresses meritocratic opportunity, but eats away at people's confidence in the institutions and power of the state; it should come as no surprise that it was mentioned so often as a factor behind the Arab Spring.

I want to make corruption part of Malaysia's past, not its future. And that means changing organisational as well as business cultures. I have created a new governance and integrity minister role in the cabinet; it is held by the former president of the Malaysian chapter of Transparency International. And we have elevated our anti-corruption agency - which answers annually to a parliamentary special committee on corruption, an independent advisory board, and a complaints committee - to self-regulated, independent commission status.

It is our hope that the commission may serve as an example for other countries looking to build the institutional capacity to combat corruption. After all, for governance and commerce alike, the most vital currency is trust. If we deliver what we have promised to the people - in this instance, a concerted fight against corruption - and deliver consistently over time, that currency will appreciate. The reward is not just a more open and transparent business environment, with more vibrant markets and greater opportunity, but also a renewed faith in the ability of governments to change things for the better.

I simply do not know how to respond to the above statements  I could take it seriously, along with a lb of salt or I could take it as a joke, which I am prone to think  it is.  Judging by the way the finances of this country is being managed by those being entrusted to manage the rakyat’s money, I guess we do  need a joke or two, every now and then, to keep ourselves sane. Otherwise we, or at least my goodself, would have gone bananas a long time ago.

Syukur Alhamdullillah, I was not at that venue in San Francisco when such pronouncements were made. Otherwise, the American security personnel at the venue would have a hard time to restrain me from rolling around on the floor and the Malaysian ambassador to the US, too,  would have a very difficult time to find an American bomoh to cure me of my hysterical fits of laughter.

As promised in my earlier postings, I will not comment on the malaysian state of governance, as in the end  it will just become an exercise in futility, I reserved my comments. However at the very least, I now know that whenever I am feeling blue, all I have to do is scan the local mainstream newspapers to see what our ministers are saying. So if you want to have a really good laugh, just listen to the tabling of the 2014 budget in parliament,  tomorrow 25 October 2013.  Just remember not to throw away the tissue papers that you use to wipe away your tears of laughter. You might need it again to wipe away your tears of pain when your pocket hurts after the budget announcements.

Until the next posting,  lots of hugs from Uncle B, who now knows why smart  Malaysians calls our parliament a circus. Because it's full of clowns.

Ta! ta! and cheerio!!