Dennis Ignatius
~ Provoking discussion, dissent & debate on politics, diplomacy, human rights & civil society.
Junkets, ego trips & official visits
26TuesdayNov 2024
[1] Opposition leaders are hammering away at the prime minister over his remarks in parliament that nearly 80% of the costs of his recent visits abroad were covered by private companies.[1]
[2] Actually, such arrangements are not new. It is normal practice for businessmen to accompany the prime minister on official visits. When Dr Mahathir Mohamad visited China towards the end of 1985, some 200 businessmen accompanied him. Those who join are usually required to pay for their share of the costs, particularly if a chartered flight is involved. In this sense, there is nothing untoward about the prime minister’s statement that the private sector subsidised his recent visits.
[3] It only become an issue because PMX tried to make it out to be something that was unique to his administration – one of the measures introduced under his administration to ensure the efficient management of expenses for official overseas visits, to quote the NST. “We did things differently recently, as I noticed that travel costs were often quite high”, he was quoted as saying. Of course, it was misleading, to say the least.
[4] PMX is often his own worst enemy; his obsessive need to constantly preen his own feathers gets him into all sorts of unnecessary controversies. He then digs himself deeper into the hole by blaming everyone else for his own missteps.
[5] How effective these visits are or what actual benefits are derived from them is of course something else. All prime ministers boast about the millions if not billions of contracts and investments that were secured during their visits. Mostly, it is just hot air; it is not for nothing that Malaysia has a well-deserved reputation for being a world leader in signing MOUs. If all those MOUs were real investments, Malaysia would be an industrial superpower by now.
[6] Prime ministers like to be accompanied by businessmen particularly on visits to developing countries to make themselves look good in the eyes of their hosts, many of whom have unrealistic expectations of what Malaysia can do for them.
[7] When Mahathir visited Peru in the 1990s, the whole country was giddy with talk about how Malaysia was going to boost the economy with multimillion dollar investments. Malaysian tycoons arrived in Lima in four or five different private jets; the country had probably not seen so many private jets parked at the airport before and were understandably excited. Nothing ever came out of all the MOUs that were signed though it did burnish the credentials of Dr Mahathir as a Third World leader of some repute.
[8] Businessmen, on the other hand, are eager to join the delegation not to explore business opportunities abroad but to gain the attention of the prime minister for projects in Malaysia. Foreign trips provide businessmen unique opportunities to interact with and capture the attention of the prime minister. Our businessmen know full well that there are easier deals to be had at home than in distant unfamiliar lands.
[9] It goes without saying that not all visits are as productive as they are publicly made out to be though no prime minister would ever admit it. Indeed, I never met a prime minister or minister who wasn’t impressed with his own performance during such visits.
[10] There is also no shortage of fawning followers who rush to ingratiate themselves with the prime minister. Who can forget a former DAP MP gushing that she “watched in awe” as Prime Minister Anwar courageously took on the big powers and spoke with such “courage, conviction, passion and spirit” that it “broke the spell” of Malaysia’s decline on the world stage. Or the recent remarks by another DAP MP comparing PMX to both Mahatma Gandhi and Nelson Mandela. Who would have thought that the DAP would so quickly degenerate into a party of sycophants but that’s another story.
[11] Anyway, junkets are one of the perks that come with the job whether you are prime minister, minister or state assemblymen. All it takes is some creativity to dress up a junket as a study tour, official visit or an investment promotion mission. I suppose there’s no better way to see the world than at taxpayers’ expense. If taxpayers only knew just how much is spent on these “official” visits by federal and state officials and the things they do abroad, there would be an uproar. But that’s why we have the Official Secrets Act.
[Dennis Ignatius |Kuala Lumpur | Tuesday, 26 November 2024]
[1] Anwar: Private companies covered 80 per cent of costs for official visits |NST | 21 Nov 2024
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