FORMER prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad finds it ironic that the Perikatan Nasional government wants professionals to manage the Covid-19 pandemic but removes them from government-linked companies (GLCs) to reward politicians.

Debating the royal address, the 95-year-old sarcastically congratulated the government for not replacing healthcare professionals for a politician.

“I would like to congratulate the government as it handed over the efforts of combating this pandemic to the professionals.

“This government, I’ve realised, likes to change professionals with politicians. There are 30 over bodies that were changed to give politicians more money,” Dr Mahathir said in the Dewan Rakyat today.

He said because of this, pandemic mitigation efforts in Malaysia is among the best in the world and is being handled properly.

“With this, the pandemic was handled efficiently and because of this, the pandemic was curbed in a shorter time than expected,” Dr Mahathir said.

The independent parliamentarian also urged the government to stop changing GLC heads as previous appointments made by the Pakatan Harapan government were based on merit.

“I hope this change of professionals in various bodies by this government will be stopped because we need the professionals appointed by PH as they have their own abilities,” said Dr Mahathir.

The PN government has swapped several key professionals in GLCs to reward politicians for supporting PN during the collapse of PH.

Among those removed were Permodalan Nasional Bhd (PNB) chief executive officer Jalil Rasheed, who had said his arm had been twisted into resigning. – July 21, 2020.