Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak's literal take on his “People First, Performance Now” slogan on a social networking site today received some incisive sarcasm.
When it was made known that Najib personally answered over 600 Facebook messages, parliamentarian Lim Kit Siang pounced on it and took a swipe at Najib.
"I find this most remarkable, as Najib will have no time for affairs of state as Prime Minister if he spends 10 hours a day on Facebook.
"Given an average of one minute for a Facebook message, it will consume 600 minutes (or 10 hours) for 600 messages, “ he wrote in his blog.
Lim was referring to the revelation made by Najib’s political secretary Shahlan Ismail at a briefing for 500 civil servants and community leaders in Kelantan recently.
Shahlan said the Prime Minister would respond to all constructive opinions submitted by the people in the country via the Facebook.
'Tools of the West'
Shahlan said Najib received about 200 messages each day with various suggestions and opinions and some of them were used as a guide by the Prime Minister.
But on certain days Najib “received up to 600 messages a day and these would be attended to by the Prime Minister personally”.
An ironic twist because a senior member of Najib’s Cabinet had earlier this year slammed social network sites.
Minister of Information, Communications and Culture Datuk Seri Rais Yatim, had lambasted Twitter and Facebook as “tools of the West”, which eroded Malaysian culture.
This apparent contradiction did not escape the wily DAP veteran who has long been a bane to politicians who missed their step.
