With DPM, what’s the need for 4 senior ministers

With DPM, what’s the need for 4 senior ministers. The government should do away with the four senior minister roles now that it has appointed a deputy prime minister, says an Umno supreme council member.

“A DPM has been appointed. Is there really a need to have four senior ministers? Isn’t this a waste (of resources)?” asked Puad Zarkashi.

“What are their roles and powers, aside from getting a police escort?”

He said Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin’s Cabinet of 70 people, comprising 31 ministers and 38 deputy ministers, was too big.

Puad said during the pandemic, the senior ministers’ roles, as well as ministerial-level appointments, should be done away with.

“The issue of coordination is why the government has failed,” he said, adding this was something a high-ranking Malaysian Armed Forces (ATM) officer had raised.

He was referring to the remarks of ATM’s management of health services division head Brigadier General Dr Mohd Arshil Moideen in a recent Astro Awani report.

Arshil, who was speaking on the Covid-19 situation in the country, was quoted as saying: “What I see is a lack of unified action and coordination from the top down.

“Now, it looks like only four ministers are working. There is one minister whose job is to open the ‘backdoor’ and that’s a senior minister,” said Puad without elaborating further.

Earlier last week, defence minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob was appointed DPM while foreign affairs minister Hishammuddin Hussein was made a senior minister for security.

The other senior ministers in the Cabinet are Azmin Ali (economy), Fadillah Yusof (infrastructure development) and Radzi Jidin (education).