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Have Yen, will travel
Published:  Oct 22, 2010 8:25 AM
Updated: 6:10 AM

vox populi small thumbnail 'With the Internet, we choose our destinations and listen to others who have been to those destinations. We don't need any help from the ministers.'

Yen Yen defends her 'lavish' travel costs

Wira: You are spending rakyat's money, YB (Ng Yen Yen). You cannot defend it unless you travel economy or by AirAsia and stay in hotels not better than three-star ones if your hosts are not picking up the tab.

If you cannot set an example, can you at least follow the leadership shown by the Penang chief minister, his exco and the senior government servants of that state (who fly budget airlines)? Can't you understand that your government in Putrajaya is running a huge deficit?

Ericlcc: What's so great about statistics! Politicians use them to lie. NYY (Ng Yen Yen) is no different. More than 75 percent of arrivals are from our immediate neighbours. I wonder if she also include day-trippers who come and dine and leave the same day.

What percentage are really the quality, big spending tourists? And yet we spend millions every year to maintain Tourism offices in countries like Russia, Canada, etc. However, one thing I must agree with her, she is specialist in her field - specialist in shoring up her own ego!

NuckinFuts: Every time our ministers and their entourages splurge on an overseas trip, we need to woo in thousands of tourists to Malaysia just to get back the amount of money these ministers have spent.

Johan A Adoi: This woman who has a yen for travelling like a queen using the rakyat's money really talks big. This self-proclaimed ‘specialist' talks like anything but a specialist.

If she is a specialist, she would have given the figures of arrivals from those countries where she went to promote and not hide under the general ‘24 million' which probably includes workers and day-trippers from Singapore, those coming from Indonesia for medical treatment and Thai drivers, etc.

And can she prove that the improved figures are due to her tourist promotions? I also can claim that because I went to Australia on a holiday (but paid for it myself) and spoke to many Aussies encouraging them to visit Malaysia, tourist arrivals jumped 30 percent.

Change Agent: By the way, why was there no media coverage in Australia or New Zealand about our ‘super-specialist's' visit? Not really sure who she spoke to or tried to convince to visit Malaysia. Must be her imaginary audience.

Pemerhati: Batu MP Tian Chua gave specific examples to show that she and her officers were extremely extravagant and wasteful with the taxpayers' money. For instance, he said that she splurged a mind-boggling RM90,000 for a two-night stay in Singapore when RM30,000 would have ensured that she could have travelled and lived in maximum luxury.

Instead of answering these specific allegations she has come out with all sorts of statistics which may be just as reliable as the 19 percent bumiputera equity statistics.

Pants on Fire: Hello, I challenge the minister to stay home for a year and see if tourist arrivals increase. They definitely will.

My friend and I travel quite a bit. We do not travel because foreign ministers come to Malaysia and encourage us. With the Internet, we choose our destinations and listen to others who have been to those destinations. We don't need any help from the ministers. This is a fact.

GH Kok: We have a population of 28 million and ‘tourist arrivals' of 24 million. Perhaps there's a need to really clarify that figure. Are day-trippers from Singapore and Thailand included? Are Indonesians travelling to visit friends and relatives in Malaysia also included?

If you travel on a Singapore-KL flight, you will notice tons of people flying in and out everyday on ‘social visits' but actually mainly for meetings or to make presentations, etc, so are they also counted?

It's a joke. Ng Yen Yen should give a breakdown of the ‘tourists' by country of embarkation and we'll see how many ‘tourists' actually come from the countries that she visited.

Soi Lek: Discuss social contract on the quiet

Swipenter: MCA and Gerakan, where were you when Unmo talked of Article 153 in isolation, blanketing out of Article 8? Article 153 talks of the special position of the Malays regarding quotas in the civil service and for scholarships, licences and permits. Article 153 as well as Article 8 is all written in black and white, go and read it.

What is there to be discussed on the quiet? What social contract? You two are just letting Umno revise, write and interpret history according to their fancy.

Yobama: Umno Malays will always fall back on the mythical 'social contract'. What does the contract say? Who are signatories of the contract? Has it any expiry date as a contract? What are its provisions? Who are the two 'sides' of the contract? What are the 'considerations'?

Please produce some documentary evidence of such a contract. If you cannot do that, it will not stand up in any court, except a 'kangaroo' court perhaps. We the rakyat, Malays and non-Malays alike, are waiting to read the provisions of the contract.

Albert: In the first place, can Prime Minister Najib Razak or MCA president Chua Soi Lek tell the rakyat precisely where is the social contract? The Umno-led BN should not continue to mislead and confuse the rakyat by continuing to use a non-existent and unwritten social contract.

The only agreement known to many Malaysians is Article 153, etc, in the constitution. The Umno-led BN should be more precise in making statements to the masses. It is morally and ethically wrong to mention a social contract that does not exist.

TS Pat: What was this social contract agreed to by our forefathers? For a better understanding, let's revisit the 50s and 60s. During that time, who was the finance minister? Who was the chief of navy? What were the racial demographics of the civil service and the uniformed services?

That was the social contract agreed by our forefathers. Equal distribution of wealth and opportunities. Not the present-day version. If you don't want us to challenge the social contract, at least go back to the original version.


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