Rafidah Aziz recalled the horrors she encountered when heading the International Trade and Industry Ministry as a result of the poor English language skills among her staff then.

In one case, she said, "warehouse" was spelt as "wherehouse".

"Of course, the officer didn't even realise it. I had to tell him. Good thing she (the person who wrote it) didn’t put an 'o' there instead," Rafidah said, referring to her conversation with another officer over the misspelling.

“But the officer didn't laugh because he didn't understand what a 'whorehouse' is.

"I had to explain, it's a brothel, even then, he did not understand," she lamented.

Citing another example, Rafidah said "benchmarking" was written as "benchmaking", and added that such mistakes saw a lecturer being roped in to conduct English lessons for the staff.

When her remarks elicited laughter from the audience, the ex-minister said it was not a laughing matter.

"I'm not joking because these are facts. They are still alive you know, those guys.

"If there were memoirs, they would write what I said to them," she said, drawing more laughter from those who attended her talk, titled 'Staying Ahead in the Competitive World' in Kuala Lumpur.

Rafidah emphasised the need to inculcate English language skills in children, stressing that it would not make a person less nationalistic.

"We better look at equipping our young to be assets to the country. How? When they have full command of English that can take them anywhere in the world.

"And that doesn't make them less nationalistic. I'm speaking English to you, it doesn't mean I'm not nationalistic.

"Nationalistic means you love your country, you do whatever it takes to make it grow and develop. If it takes you to learn English to get things done, for God's sake, learn," she added.

The lack of proficiency in the English language continues to be a major problem in the country.

Last year, it was reported that 1,000 would-be doctors had dropped out from the medical field due to their poor command of the language.