Day: September 6, 2017

Tan Sri Khalid Abu Bakar, the 10th Inspector-General of Police has retired after an illustrious four decades with the Police force.

Detractors remember him as thr IGP that had clamped down on illegal assemblies, arrested agent provocateurs and the one who has stood up when certain parties defied the law.

I choose to remember him as the IGP who, with budget constraints and constant trial by opposition media, managed to halve the crime rate in 2016 compared to the previous year, and brought down the crime index in the same period.

We should not also forget that under his leadership the men and women of the Royal Malaysian Police had thwarted countless potential terrorist attacks although one grenade managed to be lobbed at the Movida bar in Puchong.

With his retirement, Khalid has been appointed the Chairman of Prasarana Berhad as well as a special envoy for anti-terrorism/extremism and human trafficking.

Many question his appointment as the Chairman of Prasarana. Among them is DAP’s Ong Kian Ming who, being a twit, posted this question on Twitter:

I don’t blame Ong Kian Ming for displaying such stupidty. Why else do you think that he chose the DAP to be his political platform?

For those who asked the same question, Prasarana’s Chairman post is a non-executive post. Khalid does not need to get involved in the day-to-day running of the GLC. Have you heard of a Chief Executive Officer? Yes, that is the guy who runs the show.

So save some of your stupidity for later. You still have decades ahead of you.

The other person who asked the same question unfortunately is PPP’s Vice President Andrew Tiong Yap Choon who asked the following in a reply to a Facebook posting:

Perhaps he should have asked around about Khalid’s appointment. He would have easily gotten the answer as his party’s President, M Kayveas, is currently the Special Advisor to the Minister of Transport.

If he does not have direct access to Kayveas then maybe he should have asked Anthony Francis Fernandes what did he know of the airline business having jumped straight into it from the music industry?

Or just ask Benta Estate boy, Kayveas, what does he know about transportation that he got picked to advise the Minister of Transport since he is not from that background?

Clever is knowing what to ask. Wise is knowing if it should be asked. Sadly, many are neither.