Abolish entertainment allowances!

by Independant New

As the government increased the petrol prices causing grievance to many people in the country, Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi decided that all ministers should have their ‘entertainment allowances’ cut by 10%. The Prime Minister himself currently enjoys RM18,865 of entertainment allowances monthly while full ministers gets RM12,320 and their deputies half of that. The 10% will still provide the PM a monthly entertainment allowance of RM16,978.50 which is approximately 4 times more than our GDP per Capita as reported by CIA (https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/my.html).

According to him, these cost saving steps will save the government an annual RM2 billion in total. I do not know how these figures add up to but this amount will be channeled back to low-income earners to help them in these ‘difficult times’.

I wonder how a person who takes RM16,978.50 from us (the tax payers) for entertainment purposes know exactly the meaning of 'difficult times'. As a normal civilian of any country, the first thing that comes to my mind is why they need entertainment allowance? Who are they entertaining? Themselves? Their family? Are these figures being reported publicly? Who and how much are they utilizing from these monthly allocation and are these entertainment allowances justified?

I am asking from a business perspective and as any normal employee of any organization, when it comes to entertainment allowances, how are these monies being spent and what do they bring in return to the company? If a salesman for Proton spends RM10,000 on entertaining their clients but sells 3 Proton cars a month, is his entertainment fees justified? No.

If the Minister of Tourism spends RM10,000 on entertainment fees how is it being justified? Did she bring in more visitors? Did she brought in more corporate sponsors? Where and how are these tax payers blood, tears and sweat being spent?

If you work in Malaysia, you know damn right that you would have to entertain these ministers or in fact anyone from the government sector instead of them entertaining you.

Lim Kit Siang said the government should slash at least 50% and various NGO’s says 10% is not enough. I say abolish entertainment allowances altogether! As a government officer, you can organize whatever meetings through the ministry and an annual budget be allocated from the ministry to cater to these ‘entertainment’. If the minister wants to pay for Lee Kuan Yew’s hotel stay at Shangri-la, get the ministry to pay. If the minister wants to buy David Beckham dinner, get the ministry to organize it. The minister have no business paying anything he or she wants on behalf of the government without going through the ministry. Abolish the entertainment allowance for it is an absolute waste of government funds!

Use the money for better causes. The Prime Minister have no rights to use the term ‘difficult times’ because he doesn’t even understand the meaning of the word.