My recent trip to Bangkok prompted me to write this letter, to express my serious concern over the image of certain current members of the cabinet which is supposed to be the brains behind the government.

Late last year, I was invited by friends to attend a grand anniversary dinner organised by the Selangor/Kuala Lumpur Car Dealers' Association at a leading hotel in Kuala Lumpur.

The programme started with a young lady master of ceremonies who spoke excellent Bahasa Malaysia and English. Later, the president of the association have his speech after which the guest-of-honour, Deputy Minister of Home Affairs, Tan Chai Ho was invited to give his speech.

Tan began in Bahasa Malaysia to address all the VIPs with the rest of his speech in English. But my God ... if his Bahasa was poor, his English is horrible! His pronunciation in both languages was totally out. There was no grammar and lots of grammatical errors were made.

I could see guests attending the dinner whispering in surprise amongst themselves. I was ashamed. An honourable deputy minister should perform better because he represents the government. I am not sure of the background of the said deputy minister, but he should be aware that our new prime minister has been advocating a new era of leadership, image and direction.

I felt very sorry to be there that night and my perception of the image of the Barisan Nasional government has deteriorated since then.

But recently, we have been talking about the performance S Samy Vellu, the works minister. I personally feel that this honourable minister was bold enough to explain the facts and figures to the public because he was good in both Bahasa and English.

I just wonder how MCA, which claims to represent six million Chinese in Malaysia and having more than one million members, is unable to identify a more qualified member of high calibre to represent the party in the government.

I do not claim to be an expert in English but at least I don't mispronounce simple words. I don't mean to tarnish the good image of 'YB' but even those present at the dinner were equally puzzled as to how a senior government representatives would converse with foreign guests during official functions.

I remember very well when I visited Bangkok some 20 years ago. Then, the hotel receptionists and Thai Airways air stewardesses spoke very poor and slow English. During those years, we Malaysians used to be very proud of our English standard.

But recently, during my trip to Bangkok, I noticed a tremendous improvement in that the Thais now spoke good English. They have improved. I am even told that all Thai politicians must have tertiary qualifications before they are allowed to contest as MPs or senators.

I sincerely hope that the BN government will seriously look into this issue as we 25 million Malaysians need better and well-qualified politicians to lead us into the 21st century what with global competition getting tougher and our neighbouring countries improving their competitive edge.