The National Security Council's (NSC) response to public criticism about how the
federal government had handled the flood disaster epitomises Putrajaya’s denial
syndrome, said DAP.
Its national publicity secretary Tony Pua said the NSC had also raised more
questions than answers when it defended the government against the
criticism.
"I cannot help but feel both vindicated and mildly amused with the strident
response the NSC issued to rebut criticisms against its poor management and
preparation against the country’s current flood disaster.
They even took the trouble to name me four times in the lengthy reply, accusing
critics of 'making their remarks from the bench' who 'are full of pomp'," he
said in a statement today.
Pua, who is also Petaling Jaya Utara MP, said he could respond to the NSC
rant, paragraph by paragraph, but he would only focus on the two key points in
the response issued two days ago.
The first was the NSC's inability to take criticism, Pua said, as if it could
do no wrong and no one else, even an MP, should comment on it if they were not
involved in the government's disaster management operations.
"The NSC cannot be more wrong. While the public are not directly involved in
NSC operations, it is certainly our duty to highlight these issues if the NSC
does a terrible job.
"We highlight the issues not for the sake of embarrassing the NSC and the
government, but to tell those in power that they can right those mistakes, buck
up and mitigate the problems faced by the people," he said.
Pua also said he did not quote rumours in the social media when he criticised
authorities over their response to the floods.
"The NSC accused me of making wild allegations by quoting unfounded rumours
in the social media, saying that it felt especially sorry that a public figure
like Tony Pua would stoop to quoting information from an unreliable source to
lambast the government, particularly towards the NSC.
"I reviewed my two prior press statements again and I did not find myself
quoting any such rumours. Instead, I quoted Trade and Industry Minister Datuk
Seri Mustapa Mohamed, who is also Kelantan Umno chief," he said.
Pua agreed that there would often be unpredictable challenges in managing
disasters, but NSC had failed to demonstrate any urgency in its leadership as a
“commander” and was "terribly slow in responding to the rapidly escalating
crisis."
Secondly, he said the complete lack of preparedness and urgency to deal with
the crisis was exposed by NSC’s own statement.
"It appears that NSC was only interested in taking a leaf of the Prime
Minister (Datuk Ser Najib Razak) to imply a threat of 'libel' against me."
The NSC in its statement suggested that Pua could face a libel suit for
claiming that Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin had only met the
NSC on December 27, 2014 to deal with the flood situation; and that no prior
meetings were held.
It said several meetings had been held prior to the beginning of the monsoon
season, with the first meeting chaired by Muhyiddin on January 3 this year.
A second meeting was chaired by Minister at the Prime Minister’s Department
Datuk Seri Dr Shahidan Kassim on October 13 this year, and a third at the
working level on the same day, chaired by the NSC secretary.
Pua noted that the meeting chaired by Muhyiddin on January 3 was nearly one
year ago, and suggested that it could have been to discuss the floods in
December of the previous year instead of preparing for the coming one.
"The fact that the NSC admitted that there was only an additional two
meetings held on October 13 this year since a year ago only proved that the NSC
clearly did not put great importance or emphasis on managing the annual flood
crisis.
"The severity of this year’s flood only starkly exposed NSC’s lackadaisal
preparations and caught the Najib administration with its pants down," he
said.
Pua said NSC's own statement proved the need for a detailed public
post-mortem once the current crisis is dealt with.
"It is hence important for us to support both the call by my colleagues,
(Seremban MP) Anthony Loke and (Gelang Patah MP) Lim Kit Siang, for a emergency
parliamentary sitting to debate the crisis and to set up an independent Royal
Commission of Inquiry to investigate into the cause and management of the worst
natural disaster to hit Malaysia in recent years," he said.
In a statement to defend the federal government from critics, the NSC said
the floods which led to the displacement of over 200,000 people in the East
Coast states were "abnormal" and were causing major obstacles and problems to
the relief efforts by the government.
NSC also said it was disturbed by the allegations made over social media and
in web portals, including a commentary published by The Malaysian Insider; and
described such criticism as being politically motivated.
Malaysia is dealing with one of its worst floods in history. Almost a quarter
of a million people have reportedly been displaced in several states, namely
Kelantan, Terengganu, Pahang and Perak. – December 31, 2014.
http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/malaysia/article/nsc-handling-of-flood-criticism-shows-denial-syndrome-says-dap
