PUTRAJAYA, May 1 — Water, Land and Natural Resources Minister Dr Xavier Jayakumar has rated himself seven to eight out of 10 for his performance and his ministry achievements.
“I can always tell you it is in the high numbers of seven to eight that we have managed.
“I thank my ministry KSU and officers who have been very forthcoming.
“Our main achievement is that we managed to consolidate, even though there was a huge task in front of us in terms of national debt, corruption, falsifying minutes of Auditor-General’s report, and falsifying accounts,” he was quoted as saying by MalayMail at a special press conference this week to mark PH’s first anniversary in power.
Asked what achievements he and his ministry made so far, the PKR vice-president said he has managed to strengthen the water industry and ensure Malaysians are provided sufficient water supply throughout the year.
He said the Selangor water restructuring deal was resolved in less than a month after he took over.
“I can tell you most states have agreed with my reasoning on why water tariff must go up to strengthen the industry.
“We must understand that we have never paid attention to the water industries over a long period of time and this is a resource that we must be careful about,” Dr Xavier said.
However, he stated that his ministry needs to pick up speed in decision-making as well as to be more people-oriented and business-friendly.
“The ministry is very big, I have 18 agencies. To go into all the agencies one by one, to know how they really run, it will take me another term in order to really understand the mechanisms of it.
“Upfront I have visited all the agencies and I know how they run, but the intricacies of it, there is a lot of things we need to improve.
“We need to make decisions faster, need to make things faster on the ground. We have to learn to cut red tape and be more people-orientated and business-friendly,” he said.
Dr Xavier said the ministry is also constantly engaging with various non-governmental organisations (NGOs) related to wildlife and forestry and is ready to listen to their input and feedback in order to move forward.- Source: MalayMail/Yahoo News.
