Despite my work commitments and of course, the world cup fever, I am writing to comment on your report Mahathir regrets failure to change complacent Malays.

I can't help but to respond on behalf of the Malays whom he criticised as being complacent, incompetent and ungrateful.

Isn't it astonishing that after more than 20 years in power, the prime minister admitted that he has failed, after pleading and praying...to change the mind set of the Malays.

The prime minister is wrong, in my opinion, to slam us as being complacent, incompetent and ungrateful. In fact, he should instead look at his entire party, government and business cronies where his criticism would best apply.

The prime minister should be analytical and observant enough as to which category of the Malay community that lives in extravagance and takes the easy way out. Who among them reside in posh houses and exclusive condos ?

Who own luxury cars — normally more than one — worth millions?

More often than not, they are those that benefitted from the 'culture' of 'cronyism' in Mahathir's party and government.

For most of the Malays in Terengganu, Kelantan, Penang and other Malay dominant states, the word extravagance is simply not in their dictionary.

We saw a great deal of incompetency among the Malays who left contracts and projects secured from the government incomplete, at the expense of the rakyat and then the government conveniently uses public funds to bail them out.

The much groomed Halim Saad, Tajuddin Ramli and others should be fine examples where competency can be questioned.

As for ungratefulness, how many Malays who earned enormous returns from lucrative government contracts and projects care to come back to fellow Malays by providing for instance, education aids to needy students?

As such, it is grossly unfair for the prime minister to throw the blame on the people for his failures. With due respect, who's being incompetent here?