A couple of weeks ago, the Government announced a 4 phased recovery plan which immediately was heavily criticised by many sectors of the public, businesses and ex-Ministers like Tan Sri Rafidah Aziz as inadequate and lacking a proper strategy in other areas of the economy and national development. Infographic source: Malay Mail
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Who is Tan Sri Rafidah Aziz?
The ex-Minister of International Trade and Industry who is also known as the Iron Lady, Tan Sri Rafidah Aziz has been one of the more vocal critics of this national recovery plan was. If you had not known her before, here is a funny prelude scene from Harith Iskander’s Obviously Harith Iskander where Harith drives the Iron Lady around.
The funny was that Harith mentioning that he can handle women before he becomes silent when Tan Sri Rafidah Aziz enters the car.
Tan Sri Rafidah Aziz knows her stuff considering that she was graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics and a Master’s Degree in Economics. She was also a lecturer in the Faculty of Economics, the University of Malaya from 1966 to 1976 before she joined politics.
I recalled reading an interview with a CEO from Taiwan who opened his factory here and when he was asked who he admires the most, his reply was immediately Rafidah Aziz. He added that this is because Rafidah Aziz is one person who knows her stuff, precise and stands firm.
When Dr M joined Pakatan Harapan and went against his ex-political party, she supported Pakatan Harapan causing her to be sacked from UMNO.
The only shortcoming against her is her influence and decisions on AP (Approved Permit) especially on imported vehicles which many says attributes to the higher selling price of quality foreign cars. Further, these APs are controlled by a specific group of people which meant easy money when they sell these APs to large corporations to import goods from overseas.
Harith’s What’s Going On, Malaysia?
Before the criticisms started to fly on the national recovery plan, Harith got Tan Sri Rafidah Aziz on his nightly talk show to talk further on her thoughts on the COVID and it is indeed an interesting talk considering Rafidah Aziz headed MITI for more than 20 years.
National Recovery Plan: The Criticism
Soon after the government announced the national recovery plan, Tan Sri Rafidah Aziz wrote this on her Facebook page.
Something Else To Ponder
Tan Sri Rafidah Aziz recently also questioned whether the country had a proper exit strategy from this COVID19 pandemic and resume the economic growth:-
The problem compounding the bad decisions of the government is that there may be too many cooks spoiling the soup. We have been getting different politicians and Ministers coming up with different SOPs which changes on a daily basis which renders the enforcement meaningless.
Then we have the famous double standards comes into play especially by the very people who suppose to show a good example and enforce the SOP.
The declaration of Emergency by the Government may be correct initially to reduce the crazy political shadow play that causes the spike in the number of cases during the Sabah elections in September 2020.
However, despite the Emergency in place, the number of COVID19 cases has continued to increase and thus it does not make sense for the Government to continue with the Emergency. More so with the Members of Parliament have undergone COVID19 vaccination which makes contravening of the Parliament to be less risky.
Once the Parliament in session, the Government need to start formulating the necessary strategies to kick start the national economy and other key sectors that have been disrupted considerably due to the COVID19 pandemic that started back in 2019.