PETALING JAYA: Pakatan Harapan chief secretary Saifuddin Abdullah said the government was already making good on its manifesto promises including such big ones as reform of institutions, removing GST, stabilising the petrol price, and ending some bad practices of the previous Barisan Nasional government.
Speaking in a video interview with Sinar Harian, Saifuddin said one glaring change was the way a fair investigation had been carried out on former Prime Minister Najib Razak in regards to the 1MDB scandal.
“When you compare the investigations to those done before (by BN), they could take place at any given time. There were some PH leaders that were arrested at midnight by police officers in garb which looked like they were out looking for terrorists.
“Najib on the other hand was questioned at MACC in the daytime, and Mahathir has ordered an end to late night investigations.
“He also said there will be no more cases of those being investigated being put into dark rooms. We will ensure that the investigations are fair and done in a humane way,” he said when asked to comment on the recent late night raids at Najib’s homes.
Sarcastically, Saifuddin called out some BN leaders who had criticised the timing of the investigations on Najib during the fasting month.
He said they were suddenly finding their conscience. “Before this,those people that complained about these raids had never expressed their worries of the poor who did not even have clothes during fasting month. We never heard from them before.
“Now suddenly we can hear them speak,” said Saifuddin, who won the Indera Mahkota parliamentary seat at the recent general election.
During the 28 minute talk, Saifuddin also said the government was being fair in shutting down some agencies like SPAD and JASA.
“We need to trim government spending. Why would we want to have duplicate agencies? JASA is just an Umno apparatus while SPAD employees were being absorbed into the Transport Ministry.”
Saifuddin, who was also former deputy Higher Education minister, praised newly appointed Education Minister Dr Maszlee Malik’s suggestion to look at Finland to reshape the country’s early education system.
“This is crucial because we want young kids to stop bringing heavy books to school, we want to make learning fun, there will be no more Saturday classes and extra-curricular activities must be part of education and not separated from it.
“Teachers will not be burdened by clerical work, as more clerks as well as teaching assistants will be provided to schools.”