Ever since Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi took over the helm with his 'open style', the country's nascent democracy seems to have developed, with greater freedom of speech translating to public clamour for greater accountability.

The works minister, S Samy Vellu, is justly bewildered at the recent developments.

Suddenly he is asked to resign or face sacking over several infrastructure failures - for example, MRR2's design fault, the non-completion of the Matrade building, Gua Tempurung's landslide and the fungal infection in Johor's Sultan Ismail Hospital.

This call for a minister to resign or be sacked, not only from unconnected interest groups, like Selangor Chinese Assembly Hall, but also by BN backbenchers, has until recently, been unheard of. (So was the open public exchange of blame between the health and works ministers over the fungal attack at the Sultan Ismail Hospital.)

The works minister is simply caught in the wrong time and wrong place, facing this upsurge in public clamour for accountability.

The wrong time, because these developments would not have happened under the Mahathir administration. The wrong place because he is responsible for the Works Ministry.

The Works Ministry has to execute public and infrastructure works for just about every other ministry. For example, it has to be involved in building hospitals, highways and ports - about which the Health and Transport Ministries also have the right to contribute, yet have no responsibility if things go wrong.

If the Works Ministry builds a dam, the Finance Ministry will have something to say about the cost, the Environment Ministry on the rivers and environment.

The fact is that the work of the Works Ministry is ubiquitous and high profile and involves meeting the requirements of other ministries. More work means that the mathematical odds of mishaps and failures over time are proportionately more.

The fact is that as society progresses, and infrastructure projects become bigger and more complex, their construction requires more expertise and specialised skills. The Works Ministry being the implementer of all things, but master of none, just cannot cope.

It is true that there are allegations of corruption with calls for Anti-Corruption Agency (ACA) investigations with questions asked regarding why certain non-performing contractors keep getting tenders in spite of their dismal record.

However, this kind of negotiated awards or alleged 'cronyism' - as distinguished from open tenders, is a system that not only implicates the Works Ministry, but pervades just about every other area of government.

However, because other ministries are not so high profile or in the front line of doing everything on behalf of others, their contributions of misfeasance, laches and lapses to these failed projects do not receive public spotlight, nor invite public ire as the Works Ministry unfortunately does.

Poor Samy Vellu, in many ways he has not done much worse than other ministers, but gets much more public criticism than any of them, because of the sheer size of his portfolio.

Was it not Bertrand Russell who said that '... envy is the basis of democracy in the conquest of happiness?'

With greater democracy, people here are now saying that 'Sure, other ministers may not be any better, but Samy has got the plump ministry with big and important jobs'. So the argument for attack seems to be the greater the reward, the greater the responsibility, risks, accountability and blame hardly an argument that will prove consoling to the works minister.

If the works minister makes the sacrifice and resigns, he can take consolation in being the first minister to do so for public accountability, even if there were no personal responsibility - all in the interest of our fledgling democracy.

Detractors are also unhappy with his combative style and his long reign as works minister. They think that he is an anachronism. But could it not be the case that the Works Ministry itself, more than Samy Vellu, is an anachronism?

Why not abolish the Works Ministry and revert to or replace it with a lesser public works department, accountable to whichever ministry requires an infrastructure project, that can in turn be responsible for any fiasco?

Take any given project - like designing bridges, roads and other structures. In modern times, it is complicated enough, with technical information gathering, time sheets, client details, project partners, relevant contact persons, archive materials, financial and budgeting information, personnel reports etc.

Why not make the Transport Ministry and Finance Ministry, which have their specifications, jointly responsible for such projects? The public works department would just implement the will of these ministries.

Likewise, the building of schools can come under the Education Ministry; the highways and prevention of landslides, the Transport Ministry; and hospitals, the Health Ministry.

We have more ministries and ministers than most countries and it will not be difficult to match any infrastructure project with anyone of them. The key here is decentralisation of functions to specialist ministries.

There is no point having the present Works Ministry as a jack of all trades and a master of none, and to selectively blame the works minister and no other ministers who also had say and hand in the projects undertaken.

Share the cake and distribute more fairly the blame, that ought to be the name of the game.