Despite Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Nazri Aziz’s derring-do rescue of the department’s FLOM blunder yesterday, a telltale sign of their ‘mistake’ may still yet be visible for those who care to find out.

“ Victor Johan: When you go to http://www.pmo.gov.my/ , under About PM you can click PM’s wife... But interestingly, under Resources, you will see Former First Ladies, and details Siti Hasmah and Jeanne,” said a subscriber in the comments section.

NONE The subscriber was commenting on an article describing Nazri’s explanation in the case of the disappearing FLOM ‘division’ from the website’s directory listings and denial of any extra staff employed to help Rosmah Mansor discharge her duties as the PM’s wife.

Following up on the tip-off, Malaysiakini checked the PMO website last night at 12.30am and found the tip to be true.

The section ‘Former First Ladies’ is clearly available as one of the selections under the ‘Resources’ tab on the Prime Minister’s Office website top main navigation bar.

Further expansions of the contextual navigation tool when moused over, shows wives to former premiers Siti Hasmah Mohd Ali and Jeanne Abdullah as ‘former first ladies’.

It would seem that in their attempts to ‘update’ the website, the PMO ‘cleaners’ forgot to fully clean-up their act.

The existence of the ‘Former First Ladies’ section in the ‘Resources’ segment of the site clearly shows the PMO’s intention to use the term to describe the PM’s wife, extending the term even to spouses of former premiers. Though they now use the term ‘wife of the prime minister of Malaysia’ in other ‘cleaned-up’ areas of the site.

‘Mistake’ shows it was no mistake

While this ‘mistake’ indeed does not prove if the so called ‘FLOM’ division was truly a permanent addition to the PMO and is being paid for from the public coffers, it does show that it was no mistake that they intended for the term to be used to address the PM’s wife.

Though not really a big secret, with Rosmah publicly attending events as ‘First Lady of Malaysia’, the department has been working hard to try and ‘correct’ this ‘mistake’ after a public outcry led by the opposition, its removal of the FLOM division directory listings being one such measure.

The division has been engulfed in a conflagration of ridicule on blogs and various online forums, all unanimously agreed that the acronym FLOM, standing for ‘First Lady of Malaysia’, rightfully belonging to the Raja Permaisuri Agung, with opposition figures and experts adding their own fuel to the raging fire.