The 2015 budget allocated RM9,383,000 for Pengurusan Bencana Negara and 45 staff for the job.
The 2015 budget allocated RM87,413,000 for TalentCorp and its more than 100 contract staff.
See budget allocation details below, click to enlarge
Rolling out red carpet for “Talents”
TalentCorp officers go globetrotting and staying in starred hotels in their quest to bring back expats as well as run career fairs in the Western capitals to recruit fresh grads and network with potential young interns who are overseas.
From their respective budget allocations, you can see that TalentCorp is given almost 10 times the priority of national disaster management.
Kera di hutan disusui, anak di rumah kebuluran. This is the Transformasi approach of the Najib administration.
No.1 who’s up in the clouds
I was searching for the famous photo of George W. Bush looking out the window as Air Force One flew over Louisiana in the wake of Hurricane Katrina dan sekaligus terjumpa gambar yang berikut (di bawah) yang saya anggap agak menarik untuk tatapan kalian.
Bush cut an isolated figure seated alone there in the presidential plane. He did not immediately go to the ground following Katrina’s landfall.
In the photo above, he came across as aloof and disconnected from the suffering of the New Orleans folk – 60 percent of the city’s population was black – who were drowning because of the flood.
In the photo below, he reminds us of the awkwardness of our own prime minister when interacting with rakyat marhaen.
Yikes …
Umno’s Titanic will sink with Najib at the helm
Like George Bush Jr, our Ah Jib Gor possesses a sterling political pedigree. Both their fathers were president/prime minister before them.
And now G.W. and Ah Jib have another thing in common: Coming undone after an act of God.
Bush was at the receiving end of a strong public backlash for his detachment from the destruction and catastrophic floods brought about by Hurricane Katrina while Najib is on the backfoot over his image as a clueless leader that is out of touch with the temporarily homeless people who’ve been evacuated.
Saham Najib turun setelah popularitinya jatuh merudum minggu ini. He is dragging Umno down along with him.
Calling Mr Clueless
There’s no way for Ah Jib to arrest his down slide once the bloodthirsty masses – I’m talking about the Yahudi Yeohs here – have got it into their head that the man can do nothing right.
Yet Najib still cannot get it into his thick zebra skull that the Chinese not only do NOT!! “ ♥ PM ” but they’ve also thoroughly rejected the BN and want to bury his party six feet underground and will happily piss on Umno’s watery grave. Paham tak?!
A Merdeka Center study conducted in the first quarter of the year showed the “Dissatisfaction” level with Najib to be at 70 percent among the Chinese and 33 percent among the Malays (see bar graph below).
This was nine months ago. What about now?
Tall red bars denote Chinese who angry at everything – at the BN, the Gomen, the PM
Rabid Dapster family barking away
Among most Chinese, Najib is held in anger and largely viewed with contempt. The Merdeka Center poll in March 2014 found that only 23 percent of the Chinese respondents were ‘Satisfied’ with his performance in office.
Today, the disdain has further increased, what with Grandpa Dapster currently going full throttle in attacking the PM over his management of the flooding disaster, and Papa and Mama Dapster already having sniped the whole year through at Najib’s failure to bring 1Malaysia to fruition.
Becoming increasingly unpopular
At the beginning of the year, Najib managed to score a fairly high approval rating among the Malay poll respondents, 65 percent of whom told the Merdeka Center they were ‘Happy’ with how the PM was doing his job.
Nonetheless, fast forward to end-December. If a popularity survey were to be conducted presently, how do you think Ah Jib would fare among the Malays?
Najib’s unpopularity with Malays rising
Down, down, down the rabbit hole
The floods will probably subside in another 3½ weeks. The aftermath and recriminations however will linger much longer.
Najib has the next 3½ years to navigate before the general election needs to be called. And it promises to be a very long-drawn 3½ years for Ah Jib … unless it is cut short like Sleepy Dollah’s tenure.
There is no other direction for Najib’s approval ratings to go but south. He just can’t seem to pull himself out of plummeting down the slippery slope.
It doesn’t help either to have the exacting Mahathir Mohamad – the son of a school headmaster – continually waving Najib’s report card which is filled with red ink. More so if the PM is persuaded by Obama over Christmas turkey to capitulate to the TPPA.
Hirabah – highway robbery
Najib has promised to defend kalimah Allah from being misappropriated. At the same time, he’s playing footsie with the Church, with Guan Eng and with uber evangelistas like J-Star CEO Wong Chun Wai.
Well, are the missionaries really trying to surreptitiously convert Malays and Muslims to Christianity? Yes, the DUMC function raided by Jais signals as much. Mais thinks so too, as does Jakim with its several warnings about the “enemies of Islam” issued during Friday sermons.
Malaysians will have to pick sides and stop being fence-sitters.
The opposition (enemy) propaganda works 24/7 and true enough, they’re politicizing the floods and Najib’s golfing trip to Hawaii when half our peninsula was submerged in water.
Promises are made to be broken, is it?
Ah Jib Gor is a PM who does not keep his promises but instead chooses to let konsetan dan punahsihat bertenggek di keliling pinggang. These advisors are collecting consultancy fees in the billions while little contingency has been made for emergencies like annual floods.
He failed to honour the MoU he signed with Hindraf to help poor Indians but is willing to spend billions altogether on Pemandu, TalentCorp and Saifuddin Abdullah’s (pix above, with Wong Chun Wai) “Moderates” think-tank – the GMM which is founded by Najib himself.
Najib nampak begitu ‘kam cheng’ ngan Papa Dapster
Proud to be a star-studded ‘moderate’
Prime Minister Najib provided P. Waythamoorthy a total of only four staff when the Hindraf chief was a Deputy Minister in his cabinet, compared to TalentCorp’s more than 100 highly paid staff on its payroll.
The contrast between the generous allocation for TalentCorp and the meagre budget for national disaster management shows the substance of the PM’s so-li-da-ri-ti … dengan siapa sebenarnya.
So far the PM’s office has not disclosed how much his Global Movement of Moderates (Najib is the GMM patron) is funding the EvangeliSTAR campaign to paint a segment of Malaysians as “racists”, “extremists” and “religious bigots”.
Wong Chun Wai in 2014 wrap-up his column today again took potshots at Isma, Perkasa and Ibrahim Ali. So we’re left in no doubt as to whom the J-Star‘s Voices of Moderation campaign is targetting.
Postscript:
The opposition will claim that if they’re ruling in Putrajaya, they will surely be able to deal more efficiently with natural disasters. – updated 4.02pm
Read, ‘Christians claim they’re “selflessly helping the flood victims‘
Najib’s Twitter message updated 8.45pm on 30 Dec 2014
Helen Ang 
Ms H. As far as I can recall, all the Prime Ministers from 2003 backwards were never so close to the crafty Opposition !
The state government of Kltan need to shoulder the responsibility..kenapa asyik salah Najib ja?? Siapa yg gondol kan Gua Musang n Kuala Krai??? Now no fresh safe pipe water kat KB.. rakyat mau clean water ka or hudud ala PAS?? Those clowns knew nothing of good governance…
Only 45 staff in our national disaster management unit, according to the Budget 2015 details. Presumably these are the highly trained professionals to deal with the unfolding situation.
From what I’ve been reading about the Hurricane Katrina congressional report (there was a probe by Congress due to the botched handling), there’s strong urgency for the federal agencies personnel to be deployed to the affected state.
And most importantly, co-ordination between what the right and left hands are doing.
Another beef about the TalentCorp’s immense budget.
During the period of the First and Second Malaysia plans, our country was still largely agrarian with a lot of poor kampung folks and subsistence farmers and fishermen. Hence Tun Razak’s emphasis on Felda.
Development funding should go to areas that will uplift the poor. In the NEP era, it was the rural areas which got the attention of the government and the reason why Tun Razak was much loved and respected.
Decades down the road, Kelantan still has among the poorest people. I’m thinking the investment pumped into TalentCorp may not bring forth the kind of expertise that will benefit those who need it most in the areas it is most needed.
e.g. Flood mitigation experts, irrigation engineers, pilots who can manage Flying Doctors service, city/urban planners, etc, taking a cue from what is happening now
What kind of professionals in what fields are TalentCorp courting when they run their career fairs for fresh grads in London and Melbourne?
How would Talentcorp measure its success? Every RM spent vis a vis increasing the country productivity/economy/competitiveness?
TalentCorp needs to show us its KPI and provide full disclosure on the Who’s Who “Talent” it has brought back and how long these self-professed talents stayed in Malaysia.
Money poured into TalentCorp is like going down a black hole. It’s a venture to bagi kerja senang gaji besar via con-sultancy that’s become the hallmark of Najib’s wasteful, profligate premiership.
Tun said recently that Najib has got this “Cash is King” attitude. Unfortunately the cash is being spent for the benefit of these Pemandu cronies driving the BN bus off the cliff.
Re What kind of professionals in what fields are TalentCorp courting when they run their career fairs for fresh grads in London and Melbourne?
The advisory type, those that sell consulting as a product. I know because when I was working for an investment bank a couple of years ago, some of these people were my colleagues although I must clarify that I was with the private equity department of the investment bank.
re: “those that sell consulting as a product”
Ah Jib Gor keeps buying and buying. What to do?
The PM is vainly attempting to moderate his defense of kalimah ALLAH, and a whole host of consultants and think-tanks will only cost the national treasury more money to educate him to no avail. He must freely humble himself at the feet of a saintly teacher for the sake of his own soul.
Najib has to go. Repeat after me guys, Najib has to go!
The lowest scholar has no scholarship. Above him is “hafiz al-hukm al-nabawi.”
But the rescuer of the umma is “hafiz al-hal al-nabawi.” Exhaust your days in search of him.
– my Sufi sheikh
Najib bawa balik komunis ke tanah air. Satu lagi projek bangang
Najib has to go. He is liability to UMNO even worse he is BIG liability to Malaysia. Najib Ah Gor should step down. You had done many trouble in Malaysia. The sooner Najib go, the better Malaysia will be.
Nizam,
Yes sir. Najib must go. The sooner the better.
But why Najib must go? BECAUSE he is “killing” UMNO with his strings of bad decisions. His decisions alienate the Malays who are the very people who defended UMNO in the last election.
Examples of bad decisions:
1 ) Abolish ISA
2) Establishing MKPN that is filled with many who have nothing good to say about UMNO. Names that the Malays find difficult to stomach such as Marina, Sdifudin, Wardina.
3) Trying to abolish Sedition act. Najib backed off as he realised he was cornered by his own deputy.
4) Ignoring advices from Tun. Tun spoke against TPPA. Take his advices seriously. Tun is able to see that TPPA is a trap.
5) Refusal to take heed on replacing AG. AG is viewed as being not fair to BN, UMNO. As an example, AG applied that Dr Khir be allowed bail for RM1 million. The court reduced to RM750000.
AG was super efficient replying to Dr Khir and warned him to keep silent. Yet he said nothing about Anwar’s antic that 100 times worse than that of Dr Khir.
6) TALENT CORP.
Exactly what kind of people Najib trying to bring back? Those grateful to BN or those who want UMNO dead?
7) REFUSAL TO ACCEPT reality that Chinese want UMNO dead. UMNO’s death paves the way for DAP to achieve political power. Until today, DAP is unable to achieve its dream as UMNO is on its way.
Yet Najib continue to beg the Chinese AS IF his government would collapse without Chinese.
Talentcorp – a sh*t waste. A contract pro is a better strategy.
OK we can stop politicising this tragedy for so many, adinda Ms Helen
and instead focus on personally contributing, kan?
Worikh Kelate:
We can’t all be joining the heroes, only sending RM000s each to my wife’s cousins to buy sundries and more needed for restoring their house and property in KB.
This is close to Sunnah SAW, to care first for immediate kins and it is effective. It fits their needs, sent quick and reaches the target people.
Who knows, when we are next in dire need? Our d’ua of the best in-sya-Allah for those affected, officials on duty and volunteers!
Haji M Zin
Alor Gajah DPH
The info I blogged yesterday has been useful. PAS vice president Salahuddin Ayub raised the matter today, http://www.malaysiakini.com/news/284815
Politicians from both sides read my blog, it seems.
Yes RM9.4 million does seems absurd now, adinda Ms Helen
although all the full breath of government ministries and $ are all Turun padang now.
Maybe it is our accountants unfamiliarity with ABC vs traditional departments annual budgeting ?
( Activity Based Budgeting/ Costing )
Haji M Zin
Alor Gajah DPH
This RM9.4m allocation comes under the PM’s Dept under National Security Council.
There could perhaps be an overlap with the Works Dept and the Environment Dept.
Najib has to go???
memang patut pun….
tetapi rasanya Najib will not go…..
sebab…
bukankah beliau seorang yang ‘delusional’?
bukankah beliau seorang yang ‘detached’ daripada keluhan rakyat?
saya rasa, memang Najib will not go…
sebab…dia syok sendiri dengan placard yang sering dilihatnya sebelum ini iaitu ‘I lurrve PM’!