Why I love Marina Mahathir.

This is taken from Marina Mahathir's 'Musings' column. In no way do I claim to be the author of this piece. All credit goes to this amazing lady :)

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The Government wants us to change our lifestyles to cope with
inflation. It is easier said than done since most people were
having it difficult even before the hikes. The Government must
first set an example by doing things it should have done long
ago.


WITH the recent hike in fuel prices and the Government's
exhortations for us to change our lifestyles in order to cope,
may I provide here some suggestions for the Government and
those who work for it to 'share our burden'.


1. Stop having meetings, especially out at resorts, far enough
away to be able to claim transport allowances. Have online
meetings instead or teleconferences. Use Skype or chat.


2. No need to order special pens, bags, T-shirts, notepads and
other goodies for those same meetings.


3. No need to order kuih for mid-morning or teatime meetings in
government offices, or nasi briyani lunches for those meetings
that happen to end just at lunchtime.


4. Cancel all trips for government servants to conferences
overseas unless they return with full reports of what they did
there, who they met and what they learnt and how they mean to
apply what they learnt at home. Ask them to do presentations to
colleagues who did not get to go, on the most interesting and
important papers that they read.


5. Scrutinise invoices for contracts to make sure they are
truly reflective of what those projects or supplies cost.


6. Stop elaborate launches for government programmes. In
particular, stop the buying of souvenirs, special batik shirts,
corsages, bouquets and caps.


7. Make all civil servants and politicians travel economy
class. That means really travelling at the back of the plane
and not buying full fare economy class tickets that allow them
to be upgraded to Business Class.


8. Stop having the full complement of police escorts to cut
down on petrol costs. If they need to be somewhere by a certain
time, start earlier like the rest of us. Wouldn't be a bad
thing for them to also experience a traffic jam.


9. Once a week (or more), have ministers use public transport
so they know what everyone else has to suffer. This might
provide them with the incentive to improve them.


10. Once a week, let ministers go to a market to buy food for
their families with instructions to not spend more than RM100.


11. Get ministers to carpool. They might get more work done
just by being able to talk to each other to see what can be
coordinated between their ministries. For instance, the
Ministers of Health and Women could discuss what to do about
women's health issues in the car on the way to work. Maybe have
a secretary to travel in the front seat to take down notes on
what was discussed. By the time they get to their offices,
things can get implemented.


12. Once a month, get civil servants to work with one
disadvantaged group in order to be better able to appreciate
their problems. It could be blind people one month, hearing
disabled people the next, orang asli the following month and
people living with HIV/AIDS after that.


We could start buddy systems which pair one civil servant with
one disadvantaged person and at the end of it, ask each pair to
make recommendations on how to make life better for each other.
This might get rid of the problem of desk jockeys, people who
never stray very far from their desks yet make policies for
people they know nothing about.


13. Have PA systems that shout out the name of the officers who
have to serve people at government offices so that people get
the services they came for and don't have to keep coming back
just because the officer was out having coffee.


No counter should be left unmanned for more than five minutes
before the officer is paged to go back to their stations. This
should cut down waiting time for the public and save them
transport costs in having to keep returning just to get one
thing done.


14. Government officers who lose people's files should be fined
and have their names publicised for being careless and causing
inconvenience to the public. Instead of making the public
travel to their offices several times to deal with their
problems, they should travel to go see their client and deal
with it right there and then.


And every officer who goes out of the office should be given a
reasonable time to get his work done after which he is expected
back in office so he doesn't waste time doing something else.


15. And newspapers should save paper by reporting real news
rather than non-news that they carry, particularly nonsensical
utterances by politicians.


As they say, we need to do this all together in order to make a
difference. So if the Government and politicians make these
lifestyle changes, I will do my part and change mine.


Thank You.
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Agreed? Definitely! Especially points 8, 9 and 10. Actually, with all lah.