PETALING JAYA, JUNE 12- MIC Ministers G Palanivel and Dr S Subramaniam have come under attack for being “hopeless” leaders.
The duo, who sit in the federal cabinet, have allegedly failed over the years to push Indian interest and secure affirmative action on several outstanding issues.
Among them are the MyDaftar programme, matriculation seats, Tamil schools and Tukar programme, for which millions were allocated but less that half the amount reached the recipients.
Both Palanivel and Dr Subramanian were retained as full Ministers after they won their respective seats in the May 5 general elections.
Palanivel is the MIC president and Natural Resources and Environment minister while Subramaniam, the MIC deputy president, is Health Minister.
This is their second ministerial term each and neither have allegedly delivered on promises made or safeguarded the Indian community’s interests, according to Malacca PKR vice-president G Rajendran.
“I can daringly say that both Palanivel and Dr Subramaniam are really big flops. They have failed to look into Indian interest the past four years.
“None of their programmes, from the MyDaftar to the distribution of matriculation seats for Indian students, have met its target.
“Both ministers are nothing more than ‘yes men’ pushing the Umno agenda in Najib’s cabinet,” he said.
How was money spent?
Rajendran said with the millions pumped in by Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak for Indians since 2008, the community should by now have improved tremendously.
“But this is not the case. For instance, the government allocated RM200mil for the development of partially-aided Tamil schools in the 2012 and 2013 Budget.
“How was the money spent? Where did it go? How many schools obtained the grants?
“The money was initially handled by Suriya Cooperative but later given back to the Education Ministry after MIC leaders had some misunderstanding with the company.
“If Palanivel and Dr Subramaniam cannot handle RM200mil, how are they going to handle the community?” he questioned.
Citing the MyDaftar programme, Rajendran said MIC only managed to reach out to less than 10,000 Indians although the National Registration Department esimated that there were about 40,000 Malaysian Indians without documents.
“Tukar is another programme overlooked by the Ministers. The government allocated RM8 million for the community under this programme (which transformed grocery stores into “mini marts”.
“But, only 56 to 60 Indian grocery stores participated in this programme. The total spent was only 50% of the allocation.
“We do not know what happened to the balance” he said.
Why the silence?
Rajendran also raised the latest controversy involving matriculation seats for qualified Indian students.
“Both Palanivel and Dr Subramaniam claimed that the government had allocated 1,500 seats to Indians.
“But in reality only 500 students were offered places. What happened to the remaining seats?
“Why are the two ministers silent about it. No doubt the policies are in place. But implementation is the problem.
“These two ministers must take the blame for poor implementation.
“It is not enough for MIC to say that they represent Indians in the government. They must also deliver.
“The way I see it, Najib is being taken for a ride by these two ministers and their promises,” quipped Rajendran.
