KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 4 — Umno deputy minister Datuk Ahmad Maslan said today that the reason he recommended Malaysians to start an online business on the side was because he empathised with them as he himself was from a poor family.
The international trade and industry deputy minister sparked a backlash when he reportedly said that it was not wrong to hold two jobs in Malaysia to address the rising cost of living, sparking the #2kerja hashtag on Twitter.
“I was from a poor family, rubber tapper, and my village only had electricity, water, roads in 1996 when I was 30 years old.
“So I wouldn’t want to burden the people. My suggestion was to add to their income, so they would have an easier life,” he told reporters after attending the 2015 National Book Award Scholars Appreciation Ceremony at PWTC here.
Ahmad said he had also changed his tagline on Twitter to #TambahPendapatan, which means increasing income, to steer away from the negative backlash of #2kerja, which means two jobs in Malay.
“I want to help the citizens to have additional income. My Twitter tagline now is ‘tambah pendapatan’. So we welcome any ideas for Miti agencies to increase our citizens’ income,” he said, referring to the Ministry of International Trade and Industry.
Ahmad said he expected to continue to “face challenges” on social media this year and vowed to continue to come up with suggestions.
“As a leader, if we don’t give suggestions, we might as well just be followers,” he said.
He also said he has forgiven those who had taken his suggestion out of context as he is one who “wants to sleep well at night”.
Ahamd clarified that it was merely a personal suggestion and that it was not discussed in Cabinet.
“Miti is focusing on online businesses, e-commerce in digital marketing. That is why I took the opportunity to make the suggestion because our citizens like to be on social media from day till night. Why not use the time to gain some knowledge on doing online businesses?” he said.
