LAMENTING how 55,000 public sector contract staff were terminated by the Pakatan Harapan (PH) Government in the aftermath of the coalition’s victory in the 14th General Election (GE14), UMNO president Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi has vowed to re-create as many job opportunities as possible for Malaysians.
“Have faith that the Barisan Nasional (BN) Government knows how best to do it because we have done it before,” he penned in his latest Facebook post. “Not only the public sector, even the private sector (will benefit). Through industrial empowerment, this will boost foreign investment and everything else.”
Taking a swipe at PH, the BN chairman said the 55,000 headcount figure was provided by the Congress of Unions of Employees in the Public and Civil Services (CUEPACS) encompassed staff of National Service Training Programme (PLKN), Land Public Transport Commission (SPAD), Seranta Felda, Special Affairs Department (JASA) and the National Civics Bureau (BTN).
According to Zahid, PH’s excuse on September 3, 2018 for terminating the services of Government contract staff included:
- “Government contract workers or those so-called short service workers have to face facts”; and
- “We (the PH Government) also have other constraints to consider”.
The Bagan Datuk MP claimed that the excuses of the then prime minister of the PH Government while dissolving five agencies and government committees were:
- “Most of these institutions are not part of the government that are supposed to be advising the government”; and
- “We don’t need their expertise, I think we have our own”.
Zahid further lambasted PH for its empty promise of one million job opportunities with a salary of at least RM2,500/month.
“The people shouldn’t be fooled again with PH propaganda regarding job opportunities in the run up to GE-15,” he cautioned.
“The PH Government was a very ‘constrained government’. It was a government with no action. When BN was in power, it worked hard to create job opportunities, only for PH to abolish them when it formed the government.” – Oct 18, 2022
Main photo credit: Bernama
