YOURSAY ‘Malaysia is highlighting the best of BN's little Napoleans.’

DCA chief boots media out of aviation conference

Southpaw: What an embarrassment. As though the Department of Civil Aviation (DCA) under director-general Azharuddin Abdul Rahman’s leadership has not been an embarrassment enough over the past few weeks.

He is someone who can hardly speak with clarity and explain issues in a rational manner, and is heading an important agency like the DCA. The MH370 tragedy has indeed exposed weak government institutions in this country.

Wg321: Why is Azharuddin so hostile to the media by asking them to leave the hall halfway through his speech? No wonder the Chinese families of the passengers in MH370 suspect that the Malaysian government of hiding something.

Aries46: This insolent behaviour of our DCA chief in the midst of an international forum is shocking and reflects poorly on his office and the nation. It belies a vile insidious side to a civil servant that seems to suffer from a mistaken notion of self-importance and superiority.

Incidentally, this DCA chief who was part of the MH370 investigating team also came across rather poorly in the various press conferences with the media.

It was stressful watching him on TV. He lacked in-depth knowledge and seemed hesitant, unsure and rather superficial, and with the tendency to brush off more probing questions.

And his poor command of spoken English added to his incoherence that somewhat contributed to the eventual allegations of concealment and incompetence by the foreign media.

I only hope that Azharuddin is an exception and not the norm among his ranks in our civil service.

Anon1: If members of the media are not allowed to the International Air Transport Association (Iata) Ops Conference, who then will be allowed? Members of BN parties only? This is international buffoonery at its best.

Gombak: We cannot really blame anybody for not trusting us in handling the missing MH370. It is unfortunate that we do not have a more competent DCA chief.

Azharuddin must be seen to be confident when answering questions, Instead, when he speaks, his voice shakes and this gives the impression that he has something to hide, although he may not be hiding anything.

I remember that during the first few days of the plane’s disappearance, he said four passengers had checked in but did not board the plane and so their luggage were taken out, but that was later found to be untrue. Now, for no reason he chased the reporters away from the Iata conference.

It seem he has ‘reporters phobia’. You can read his face during all the past press conferences on MH370, his face shows a lack of confident. The same goes for the MAS (Malaysia Airlines) chief executive officer Ahmad Jauhari Yahya.

The two cut sorry figures, although this may be due to stress and sleepless nights.

Ferdtan: Maybe the news media got it wrong when he asked the media to leave the hall. As he is not too fluent in English, he must have mixed up with his communication.

What he meant was that only those using stolen passports like the Italian national striker Mario Balotelli are barred.

After an earlier much-harassed and submissive head crisis spokesperson, and with the PM and acting transport minister out of the country, he now got out of his shell to bear his teeth to the international media. What a silly and unnecessary move.

It is hard to see ourselves as proud Malaysians when you have such fools as our officials.

Justice Kini: Maybe acting Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein or Prime Minister Najib Razak should be blamed for this outburst? Why must both of them leave the country when the job is unfinished?

Nothing much is known about Flight MH370 yet. Deputy Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin and the deputy transport minister may be on standby, but I am sure they will make very sorry replacements, unable to handle questions posed by the press and next-of-kin.

Anonymous #88803376: I was totally surprised when this so-called DG could not even string a sentence together without making the most basic grammatical errors.

Truth be told, he could not even describe the two Iranians who boarded the plane with stolen passperts properly and mumbled that they looked like "Batolli (Italian footballer Mario Balotelli)".

Truly, shameful for DCA, shameful for this government, and shameful for all Malaysians.

Commentable: Malaysia is highlighting the best of BN's little Napoleans. A ‘selfie’ showcasing high-handed snobbishness who actually tries hard to mask a real need to avoid facing ‘hard talk’ with reporters and to sweep everything under the carpet in the absence of his master, the acting minister.

One can understand too the predicament that he is under, when one talks in the eyes of scrutiny of International Air Transport Association, one has to be very careful in what he says.

Ombak Biru: If Azharuddin can do what he did in an international conference, you can be sure he can do more worst in a domestic conference.

This is the standard and crass behaviour of leaders in our midst. How can Malaysia progress and develop with so many of these leaders around?

Raja Chulan: This is the result of having an incompetent and mediocre DCA chief. It is high time he resigns or gets sacked. For the government, it is also high time that important posts such as the DG of DCA is selected based on competency and merit.

Don't just select anyone based on race and on 'yes man' criteria alone. Please don't risk human lives. I sincerely hope that the government will admit its mistakes and take corrective actions.

Kathleen Ong: This is the product of years of mediocrity - trying to create an illusion of superiority domestically and ignoring external reality all around.

Welcome to the real world. It’s cruel, it’s hard and it’s competitive. The chickens have finally come home to roost.

J Ng: Azharuddin’s action in barring the media will further aggravate the already poor perception of our handling of the missing MH370. It will provide foreign media, rightly or wrongly, the reasons to report news on the crisis negatively.

If our civil aviation DG cannot handle the media, then he should abstain himself from giving the talk at the Iata conference.

Our top civil servants’ mentality need total revamped. They have for too long getting away scot-free despite their incompetency in handling the local media and the Malaysian public. Their attitude of treating locals as servants cannot apply when dealing with foreigners.

BeeC: Stop blaming opposition. It's government officers themselves who have made Malaysians ashamed.

Odin: Let us forgive Azharuddin. It is possible that he was too embarrassed to have reporters hear his stammered broken English, and of the fact that for 24 days he has not even got the last words from the cockpit right.

As he clearly hasn't got a clue as to what has actually happened and how to handle his job, he also could have been afraid of taking questions from reporters.

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