Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad must face reality and realise that Vision 2020 is no longer achievable, says Communications and Multimedia Minister Datuk Seri Salleh Said Keruak.
He said this in response to Dr Mahathir’s remark on his blog yesterday, where the former prime minister said Malaysia was no longer admired as it was before and that no one had doubted then the intention to become a developed nation by 2020.
But Salleh, in a blog posting today, said the former prime minister now appeared to be trying to shift the blame onto others.
On Vision 2020, he said Dr Mahathir failed to consider the financial crises when he came up with the idea, adding that such missteps has rendered the plan no longer possible.
“Dr Mahathir did not take that possibility into calculation and a decade later in 1997, it happened yet again… It was a plan mooted under an ideal situation but 1986 and 1997 proved that there is no such thing as an ideal situation.
“So Wawasan (Vision) 2020 was no longer possible. So he wants to find someone to blame rather than accept the fact that he was wrong and the plan was not really workable,” he said.
He added that Dr Mahathir’s remark – that no one doubted that its announced intention to become a developed country by 2020 would be achieved – was merely an attempt to avoid taking responsibility for its failure and to shift the failure to someone else.
Salleh said Dr Mahathir overlooked a crucial point when he decided to change the country’s direction from a commodity-based economy to a heavy-industry based economy in achieving a developed nation in 2020.
“And that crucial point is that Malaysia does not have expertise in research and development that the other industrialised countries possess.
“So it was an impossible dream if all Malaysia can become is what we would call a bolt-and-nut operation.” he said.
As for world’s admiration on Malaysia, Salleh cited Dr Mahathir’s leadership, where the former prime minister quarrelled with other world leaders, namely then British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and then United States President Bill Clinton.
“Most Malaysians were embarrassed by those events,” he said.
In his blog yesterday, Dr Mahathir also slammed Attorney-General Tan Sri Mohamed Apandi Ali over his “no further action” decision against the prime minister, saying the finding was meaningless as Apandi had no credibility.
He said Najib should resign in order for Malaysia to regain its reputation.
The Malaysian Insider
Hornbill Unleashed 
Since Merdeka until the late 80’s our institutions of learnings, judiciary and other gov delivery service has an excellent positions among our neighbors. Race issues were never a problem and interactions among the various races were cordial and harmonious. But eversince Dr.M took over the reign, he has change everything – it become more racist with their push for Malay Supremacy by creating “bumiputera status to differentiate between its citizens and many institutions were established to pursue this direction. Many mega projects become white-elephants and the gov has to bail out cronies businesses with tax-payers monies.What was once our pride in strong command of English is now a shameful state and also our level of academic competencies is a horrific failure after failing in so many international test & rankings. Race & religion is now the focal point of many conflicts and now with the current mega financial losses thanks to 1MDB -our PM ‘s brain child- we can only pray that we do not have to turn to IMF to rescue.
Comment by Hasni — February 11, 2016 @ 11:08 AM |