JUNE 4 — We should not be fixated to the idea of having a large cabinet  which is the norm of an inefficient and corrupt government.

Cabinet and size.

When Tun Dr Mahathir wants to start off the PH government with only 10 cabinet members, he is thinking about a small efficient cabinet  similar to that of the "war cabinets of Lloyd George (1914-18) and Winston Churchill (1939-45) all contained fewer than ten members.” (1)

In order to fulfil the 100-day promises, PH had to be lean, clean and  efficient  without being bogged down by  lobbying, publicity seeking and talks.

"The size of the Cabinet must balance two requirements.  It must be small enough to allow its members to discuss issues and make political decisions, but at the same time it should be large enough to allow all the departments of state to be represented.” (2)

"Harold Wilson’s (1964-66) contained 24…Margaret Thatcher and John Major both favoured 22 members. The size of Tony Blair’s Cabinet is 24.”   (3)

Malaysia is charting a new course never seen in history and the PH government  cannot rely on precedents because there are none.  The only precedents that exists are corrupt practises and abuse of power which the PH government should do without.

The DPM post.

First and foremost , PH should put to rest the idea of having a second deputy prime minister post-it’s a waste of money.

As for Christina Liew,  the Sabah Pakatan Harapan (PH) chairperson who "vowed to continue pushing for a second deputy prime minister post to take care of Sabah and Sarawak affairs,” (4)  has an important role to play, which is to lend a helping hand to reform  the new Malaysia.

PH from East Malaysia should not worry about not having a second DPM II to look after Sabah and Sarawak because  Tun Dr Mahathir as prime minister has what the British call, a "wandering brief”  (5)  which covers all  ministries and all things political inside and outside of PH.

"Constitutionally there is no place for a Deputy Prime Minister in the British political system. The Prime Minister is not directly elected to that position - he or she occupies 10 Downing Street simply through being the leader of the majority party in the House of Commons.   Therefore if the current leader resigns or is ousted, a new leadership election occurs and the victor becomes Prime Minister. A Deputy Prime Minister might step into the breach on a temporary basis but does not have the right to assume office.”  (6)

To the British, the post of DPM is just ceremonial and unimportant.

Why it is not the same in Malaysia?

By convention, if anything should happen to the Tungku at that time,  and being a Westminister carbon copy, the next in line would be the Finance Minister, the late Tun Tan Siew Sin.  Thus to  assuage the fear of Malay populace, Tungku made sure that the PM and DPM  come from UMNO and nowhere else.   Unlike the British, the Malaysian DPM here will immediately step into the position of PM should anything happen to the PM.

Deputy Cabinet Ministers

Just like the DPM post, the deputy cabinet post is redundant and ceremonial because most of the time they are out of the loop on decision making.

The need for a deputy should be discourage because the cabinet ministers are amply backed up by a pool of qualified high level civil servants.

Now take an example the Ministry of Health,  based on its organisational chart, the Minister of Health, Dr. Dzulkefly Bin Ahmad is supported by 1 Chief Secretary,  2 deputy Chief Secretaries,   1 Director General,  3 deputy Director Generals,  3 Senior Director Generals,  42 Section heads,  5 Institutional Heads, 1 board head and 1 Enforcement officer (Pihak Berkuasa Peranti).    

This bring to a  total of  59 high lever Civil servants whose  vocation cover  every  aspect of  health care.   (7)

The Grade of two top positions are TURUS II  (RM10,242-RM20,402) and TURUS III  (RM9,315-RM18,891). The rest where the majority of the civil servant  are graded as JUSA A (RM8,465-RM17,331),  JUSA B (RM7,788-RM15,900), JUSA C (RM7,189-RM14,587) and some falls under 54. (8)  

All these figures exclude perks.

Tony Pua and Ong Kian Ming had set a precedent in Malaysia by helping out the Finance Ministry without pay.   

This practise of zero remuneration is not uncommon in Britain where some Ministers are unpaid but it never happen in BN Malaysia. 

Thus PH MPs who declared themselves as people’s MP could do their part in rebuilding Malaysia by investing their time and expertise to any ministries voluntarily without getting paid, instead of vying  for  deputy minister posts.

Reference:

1.      Andy Williams, UK Government and Politics, Heinemann Educational Publishers (1998)

2.      ibid.,

3.      ibid.,

4.      Sabah will continue to push for second DPM,  Tracy Patrick (May 23, 2018), FreeMalaysia Today

5.      Andy Williams, UK Government and Politics, Heinemann Educational Publishers (1998)

6.      ibid.,

7.      For the full information, please go to MOH

8.      From unofficial source.  For accuracy please google official site.

* This is the personal opinion of the writer and does necessarily represent the views of Malay Mail.