KUALA LUMPUR, July 5 — No government-linked companies (GLC) or statutory bodies should be led by politicians, development economist Edmund Terence Gomez told the Council of Eminent Persons today.
He said he had made it very clear during his meeting with the council that no politician should be involved as directors in any of the institutions, unless they were Cabinet or state exco members.
“The minute you put politicians in, they seem to want to use the GLC to serve their own political interest, we’ve seen it happen before,” he told reporters after the meeting.
Touching on the appointment of Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia strategist Wan Saiful Wan Jan as chairman of the National Higher Education Fund Corporation (PTPTN), Gomez said the body was a statutory body that functioned like a company.
“No statutory body should be led by a politician, if the politician is sitting there in the capacity of a cabinet minister, or as a state exco member of a state then we can consider that,” said Gomez.
Education Minister Maszlee Malik had defended Wan Saiful’s appointment last month, asserting that the latter was not a politician appointee.
Gomez said the role of GLCs in the economy must also be clearly defined.
“Are they supposed to be commercially-oriented or do they also have a social orientation and if they are supposed to be doing both, can they really fulfil this?
“GLCs must have clear goals; do we need them to deal with social issues? If they are, then why do we call them GLCs? We have statutory bodies, foundations, Government-Linked Investment Companies that (are) supposed to do it,” he said.
