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Monday, September 8, 2014

This is why our PM loves Idris Jala – Rama Ramanathan



According to Datuk Seri Idris Jala, every issue is either “a problem to be solved” or “a polarity to be managed,” and classifying it correctly determines our ability to resolve it effectively.
Idris presents his bipolar classification as incontrovertible truth. Yet, though he has been CEO of Pemandu and a minister for five years, I am not aware of any other member of the government who has adopted his approach.
Listening to Idris, one gets the impression our prime minister is a very smart man. Idris creates this impression by at least five things he does.
Second, he does everything we expect the PM to do. By this I mean that Idris isn’t constrained by ministerial boundaries: he deals with procurement, transportation, health, road signs, ministerial performance measures, etc.
Third, he regularly provides the PM with beautifully illustrated, data-based, glowing reports. Yet astute observers know that his reports are not material factors in general elections or by-elections, and lack the granularity he implies are in them. For instance, the summarised overall Ministerial Key Performance Results are published, but not the results for each individual minister.
Fourth, he makes a point of saying he is not a politician and is not a member of any political party, thus implying he provides truly objective reports of progress.
Is it really possible to be non-political when your boss remains in office through political savvy? (Idris claims the crime rate is down and appears blind to the private security numerous housing estates in the Klang Valley have implemented; he says 1.3 million jobs have been created, but is silent about migrant workers.)
Fifth, he makes a point of saying he is a member of a minority group, and that too, from East Malaysia. On Saturday he said there are only 5,000 Kelabit (his tribe), and joked that they could be put in zoos. By this he implies that the present regime in Malaysia is inclusive and if he can thrive, why not others?
Idris promotes innovation. He picks up a drinking glass, shows it to the audience and says “why can’t we make this better and cheaper than anyone else?” He tells stories of Malaysian inventors like Nik in Kelantan who makes “the best tube amplifiers” and sells them to seventy countries; like the maker of hydraulically operated hospital beds who flies a UN flag in his workplace and sells to sixty countries; like the man who “came home” to create novel solutions using stem cells; like Malaysians who’re trying to make condoms as thin as the Japanese have.
Idris tells people innovation is the only way to improve our nation. He puts the onus on private industry, though he admits the government must give a helping hand.
For instance, he tells the audience no country in the world leaves the task of public transport completely to private individuals, for in that case the fares would be unaffordable (I don't know if he’s right).
Idris says the government must persuade people that hard decisions like cutting subsidies and implementing GST are necessary; he is silent about government support for Perkasa and Isma.
Idris inspires by telling real stories of positive change, for example, with Pemandu's intervention, a government cancer treatment centre in Johor Baru avoided spending RM30 million on a second unit of equipment. The solution was to work an extra shift and move work from doctors to auxiliaries (the astute know this is the application of “lean principles”).
Idris reminds me of Tom Peters, the efficiency guru who through his book “In Search of Excellence” and talks, taught industry in the eighties to think out of the box. My eyes shone when I heard Tom Peters; today the eyes of the younger ones shone when they heard Idris.
Yet Idris fails to convince when he puts the onus to make things right on the private sector and on individual citizens. He says feedback is good, then he says feedback mustn’t create fault lines in society. Today he wouldn’t discuss the recent abuse of the Sedition Act by the government.
Idris promotes dialogue and compromise as the way “to manage polarities”. His exudes sincerity and conviction. Yet he is silent in the face of the government’s failure to disavow the Islamic authorities and Malay supremacists who won’t come to the table as equals, and who denounce human rights defenders.
On Saturday, I left the King’s Discourse organised by the Alumni of the King’s College, London, thinking our PM is indeed a very smart man. He can focus on politics while the dedicated and sincere Idris manages the nation and gives him the credit.
* Rama Ramanathan reads The Malaysian Insider and blogs at write2rest.blogspot.com.

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