'Ministers, mind your ethics' – Annuar

SHAH ALAM - Cabinet ministers of the Unity Government are reminded to maintain proper ethics when assuming the position.

Muafakat Nasional (MN) chairman Tan Sri Annuar Musa said this includes not making threats against members of the public, which were seen as trying to restrict the right to speak and acting provocatively with civil servants.

The former Ketereh MP said in the past week, two incidents should not have happened and affected the authority of the ruling government.

“The first incident involved a minister who warned netizens in a live broadcast on social media and threatened to send a police patrol car to the house of netizens who made bad comments during the session.

“Threats like this are not only seen as trying to restrict the public’s right to speak but also a form of ‘draconian’ abuse of power, while the process of implementing the law and enforcing it has a certain procedure, not according to the whim of the minister.

“If netizens commit an offence, a report needs to be lodged to enable the authorities to take action, instead of arbitrarily directing police patrol cars to people’s homes and intimidation at will,” he said in a statement on Tuesday.

Annuar added that the second incident involved a reported commotion that involved a minister and an Immigration officer at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA).

“From an ethical point of view, it is wrong for a minister to treat a public servant in such a way, not to mention that the official is not under his ministry’s portfolio.

“If there is something that causes the minister to be dissatisfied, he should consult his counterpart in charge of the portfolio first,” he said.

Thus, Annuar reminded Malaysia was not a third world country where every act of the minister was legal.

He explained that the country had rules and procedures to maintain segregation and orderly power distribution to protect universal interests.