PM picks his portrait
‘NEW MALAYSIA’ A FAR BETTER GOVERNMENT THAN ANY BEFORE IT
PORTRAITURES of Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad will feature in public and private sector offices again, two months after Pakatan Harapan’s stunning victory in the general election.
“This makes the people government-dependent and they no longer work to earn an income.
“They expect their income to come from the government, which undermines their work ethics to a point when they no longer work to earn a living,” Dr Mahathir said.
“They feel that even if they don’t work, the government has a duty to support them and this is bad because it means they are not productive.”
He said if this continued, eventually the number of productive people would be reduced and they would not be able to pay taxes that the government needed in order to support this “very lavish style of administration” that gave free gifts to the people.
“So, we have to change that and it will cost something.”
He cited money given to fishermen, who were paid monthly whether they caught fish or not, and this was something the government could not afford because the money was taken from the government or from illegal sources, such as 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB).
“Like money from 1MDB that was taken by the government and given to the people. We can’t do that as we don’t have the money.
“But if we tell the people ‘sorry, we cannot give you what you have become used to’, it would not be easily accepted because they will say, ‘Well, the previous government was better’.
“But we have to slowly tell them that there is no way we can give you money unless, of course, you work for your income,” he said.
Asked if the whole performance management system in the Public Service Department had to be reviewed to change the culture, Dr Mahathir said he saw the need to promote younger civil servants to replace the “incorrigible” ones.
“They perhaps are less experienced but with retraining, there will be a new breed of people who are not tainted by bad practices of the past,” he said.