YOURSAY | ‘Pua tried to save taxpayers’ money by removing rent-seekers and leeches.’

Dr M: 'Arrogant' Pua behaved like a minister during Harapan administration

Malaysia Bharu: Former premier Dr Mahathir Mohamad is scrapping the barrel bottom and hitting below the belt in describing Damansara MP Tony Pua’s alleged involvement in the Finance Ministry when he was the political secretary to then finance minister Lim Guan Eng as significant abuse and misconduct.

Is Mahathir digging up dirt on Lim to tarnish DAP’s prominent and corruption-free role in Pakatan Harapan as fodder for his forthcoming book?

Ironically, the hordes of those freelancing as advisors and/or rent-seekers prancing about in many other ministries, including those directly under Mahathir himself, seem to have missed his observance.

As then finance minister, Lim can walk with his head held high as a towering Malaysian for accepting the arduous role of cleaning up the most corrupt and financially-abused ministry by its predecessor identified as ‘MO1’ and his dominion as the 'worst-case kleptocracy' by the US Department of Justice (DOJ).

To cast aspirations on people like Lim and Pua is the height of ignorance, impudence and malice.

It will be interesting to read what Mahathir has to write about his role in breaching the agreement to hand over power, his alleged role in the Sheraton Move, the alleged subversion by Bersatu, and the elephant in the room – his personal abysmal and contemptible failure as the Harapan PM that earned the wrath of almost every voter and supporter.

Or does he feel that Pua’s advisory role was more damaging and instrumental to the collapse of the Harapan government?

Anonymous_15897: Pua was trying to save taxpayers’ money. He was trying to remove the rent-seekers and leeches that had been sucking the taxpayers’ blood for years.

Chinese businesspeople complained about Pua too? That shows that he tried to remove leeches and rent-seekers regardless of race.

Pua was trying to stop the culture of cronyism and rent-seeking that Mahathir created and nurtured.

Mahathir, you and your daughter are trying to whitewash your miserable legacy and create diversions.

As usual, you use DAP as the punching bag and bogeyman.

Fair Mind: Mahathir favouring cronies in business deals in creating wealth and job opportunities brought by investors is only half of the equation.

If these wealth and job opportunities were gained as a result of inflated prices, middlemen commissions, payment of corruption and under-table monies as well as poor services, are these really beneficial to the rakyat at the end of the day? Or is the country worse off?

You easily forget Harapan did not have a bloated cabinet like BN or Perikatan Nasional (PN) and how messy was the country's financial affairs after 60 years of Umno rule.

There was so much work to be done and there was only a small cabinet to do the cleaning up. In order to save the nation's money, Harapan had to burn the midnight oil to put the nation's interest first.

Instead of glorifying the successes and appreciating the work of his hard-working colleagues in his memoir, Mahathir decided to glorify cronyism and protect crooks from other countries.

Mahathir blasted hard-working colleagues who were trying to put Malaysia back to the right path instead of appreciating and protecting them.

Mortal Thoughts: There goes a former PM who admits that he wants to protect contractors who bribed their way into getting contracts. In doing so, he is prepared to demonise and castrate elected MPs who insist to do business above board.

With that kind of mentality, it explains why he has left behind a legacy that perpetuates mediocrity, corruption and incompetence at all levels of government and he continuously surrounds himself with people who think like him.

Anonymous 10928: Being efficient is something good. But being efficient and arrogant is not.

Sorry, I’m not a PN or BN fan. Just someone who sees the arrogance of certain DAP big guns and in the early months of Harapan’s rule, I told myself Harapan’s not going to last long. And indeed, it didn’t.

Well, BN had its downsides, which were not good for the country. But Harapan was also not free from their downsides which although different from that of BN and were not punishable by law, still created anger among the rakyat.

Harapan also had a very glaring weakness in only highlighting the wrongdoings of a certain race. Surely every race has its black sheep involved in corruption, some very subtle and not noticeable.

Nash: @Anonymous 10928, for far too long these businesspeople and contractors were given the royal treatment by certain politicians.

If Pua was putting those people back into their place and telling them that they can't continue behaving like they were during former premier Najib Abdul Razak's era is called arrogance, I am glad he is that way. You need salt to deal with leeches.

B Lee: Indeed, arrogance for the benefit of the nation is good. Of course, those businesspeople would not agree with Pua's handling of the contracts as many of the BN-era contracts were lopsided.

Thus, Pua had to do careful checks and balances, slashing off some, resulting in having to hurt some contractors. This led to bad-mouthing and the condemnation of Pua, which is a norm in human behaviour.

OMG: Pua and other top Harapan leaders were a breath of fresh air, reinvigorating the nation's tired, tainted racist policies that had led us to a GDP lower than tiny Singapore and an Everest of corruption.

Mahathir tried to block these efforts to revitalise the nation. Like a very bad doctor, he wanted to keep feeding the nation hallucinogenic drugs that the minorities were usurping power, that Malaysia belonged to the majority, that Islam was under attack and so on.

Now the patient is quite sickly, needs permanent crutches and force-feeding.

Fair Malaysian: Mahathir apparently threatened to sack Lim as finance minister three times but probably Lim just ignored what was perhaps an old man's tantrums.

Mahathir also reportedly wanted to sack former minister Yeo Bee Yin. Lim’s father DAP stalwart Lim Kit Siang had to intervene. Then attorney-general Tommy Thomas was asked to resign days after his appointment.

All Harapan (minus Bersatu) ministers should write their accounts for people to know what really happened behind the scenes. Otherwise, it is his words against theirs. With this account alone, Mahathir had made a hero out of Pua.

Perhaps this is the colossal "block" PKR president Anwar Ibrahim may have faced when he was the finance minister back in the day. What's more, at that time Mahathir was reigning "supreme".

Lipdah: Senility has no remedies. Efficiency is arrogance. Laziness is acceptable. This is Malaysia boleh.

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