PAKATAN Harapan has done well in its first year in power but failed to communicate its achievement to the people, said Daim Zainuddin.

It carried out reforms in key institutions – the civil service, enforcement agencies and Parliament – in its maiden year in office, said the former Council of Eminent Persons chairman.

The new administration replaced senior civil servants deemed corrupt, changed the procurement system to open tender and introduced changes to Parliament when it appointed the opposition leader to head the Public Accounts Committee, a move which would keep Putrajaya on its toes.

He said these changes are among the promises PH made in its manifesto.

“It is important for us to reform the institutions, that’s the key, but the rakyat (are) impatient, they think that this is not important,” Daim told The Malaysian Insight.

“The whole mess the country is in today is because they (Barisan Nasioan) destroyed institutions and Malaysians are not so concerned about institutions.

“But this is wrong. In order to have a functional democracy, we need strong institutions but this message did not reach the ground,” he said in an interview at his office in Ilham Tower, Kuala Lumpur, in conjunction with PH’s first anniversary.

The former finance minister said current ministers and their ministries have the communication system in place but appear not to be using them.

“All ministries must have people. They got to have press secretaries to communicate decisions to the public. The system is in place but they are not making use of them.”

Daim said for a long time the members of the administration were in the opposition and they only made statements to criticise.

“They just had to make statements and not implement any policies… they just criticised. Now you have to implement and you can’t do it alone because all ministries need each other.

“Before you announce a policy or decision, you must think about money or you have to discuss it with the Economic Planning Unit (EPU) and then you have to get the money. Then you have to communicate the decision to the public.”

Daim also touched on Putrajaya backpedalling on its decision to ratify the United Nations international treaties.

“It needed a better communications strategy. All the government needed to do was to first explain to the people what they are about rather than allowing the opposition to dictate the narrative,” he said, adding that the whole fiasco could have been avoided.

He was commenting on Putrajaya’s decision not to ratify the International Convention to Eliminate All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD) and the Rome Statute to make Malaysia a member of the International Criminal Court.

“Putrajaya appeared to have learnt and was now trying harder to get the message out to the public first,” added Daim, a key ally of Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad. – May 9, 2019.