How is it that Thai satellites can pick up debris in the ocean while RMAF satellites/radars cannot even warn us about a possible intrusion into our airspace? Now again, lo and behold the Australian government announces that the actual location has moved or shifted, based on yet new findings.
In the meantime, Inmarsat disavowed any role in these new findings. And, the acting transport minister is still acting; now holding out hope for the families who have yet to receive any concrete evidence and were previously advised to give up all hope!
Who therefore speaks for truth these days? Do we even know what is truth about the Flight MH370 any more?
Then, even more importantly, who is the real-time custodian of ‘all the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?’.
Maybe, that is why the so-called Malaysian Council of Professors has been moved from the Education Ministry to the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO). Maybe they all need education about truth matters! That Council is chaired by the Office of the National Science Advisor.
My problem is that when that Science Office appointment was first made in 1985, it was already located in the PMO. So, my question is, why did that Science Office move away from the PMO to Ministry of Science, Technology and Environment, in the first place? And now, why the reversal? Do we not use science and technology to define truth anymore? Or, did we not?
And then now, why is this tail-end Council of Professors (or Scientists) of the Science Advisors Office, which was originally formed under the Higher Education Ministry, and now located within the combined or integrated so-called Education Ministry, moving to the PMO? Can someone give me some rational reasons?
Who makes such power and control-of-science-and-knowledge-of-truth-type decisions? Is not public policy today already made based on scientific evidence? Or, is it? Maybe, like our airplane which originally headed towards Beijing, but simply changed direction, and until now no one is smarter for it? Can the Council of Professors really help with such pendulum thinking?
Worse still, now we hear ‘more truth’ about our RMAF radar capabilities. I believe maybe they were caught sleeping on the job but the minister is now cleverly trying to steer out of this honest but simple truth, by using the art of lying through ‘his personal theory of wrong assumptions’; except this time it is not to global media but to our Parliament! Is he lying to Parliament?
Parliamentary replies
Talking about truth matters; my public policy question is ‘who actually drafted the answer to Parliament from the defence minister?’. The same minister is also the one acting about Flight MH370!
For a fact I know that any parliamentary reply belongs fully to the minister responsible, and never to anyone else; regardless of who reads out the reply. It seems to me there are too many ‘goofs with answers to questions in Parliament’.
Amended replies after the fact cannot be changed what is already recorded in the Hansard. Do they not understand what the purpose of the Hansard is? Can the Hansard be simply amended so easily, at the whim and fancy of a deputy minister?
Let me therefore give my limited experience of drafting replies for the minister of international trade and industry between 1992 and 1996. Questions submitted by members of parliament are usually distributed to ministries within days.
It is immediately passed to one of the two deputy secretaries-general based on the subject matter of the topic. The deputy secretary-general meets with the responsible head of department and discusses the facts and evidence for the reply and then they jointly draft a potential reply.
The desk officer of the subject matter takes over and will work through many versions of the draft with all relevant officers, after checking facts, evidence, and truths on the ground.
When the official reply is finally ready (all this may take up to two weeks), the deputy secretary-general works closely with all concerned and gets the minister’s personal approval before the reply is sent to the cabinet division in the PM’s Department before it is forwarded to Parliament.
From that point on, the reply belongs to the minister, as per the Ministerial Portfolio Act with all responsibilities and accountabilities.
Therefore I find it incredulous that the deputy defence minister can admit a personal error, unless he simply ignored or misread the entire answer. I believe there was no error in what he read; he only read what he was given as approved by the defence minister or, at worst, by the secretary-general.
So, unless more is said to the Parliament about this matter I would propose that the deputy minister was lying!
