Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi said his priority is to reduce the crime rate before setting up mechanism to keep tabs on the police force.

Abdullah Badawi Abdullah said he has to do things gradually and stressed that the most urgent task now is to deploy more police personnel to combat crime.

Abdullah said this during a 90-minute meeting with Chinese association Hua Zong at his office in Putrajaya yesterday evening.

He was responding to the issues raised relating to the setting up of the Independent Police Complaints and Misconduct Commission (IPCMC).

Second Finance Minister Nor Mohamed Yakcop was also present while Hua Zong was represented by 19 of its committee members.

Contacted today, Hua Zong president Lim Gait Tong said they had called on the police force to improve its investigative skills.

Education issues

Apart from crime, Hua Zong also raised issues concerning education. The association had suggested that the school facilities of SRJK (C) Damansara be fully utilised.

chinese association pm meeting 060208 lim gait tong "We recommend to the PM that we should make good use of the facilities in place at the school. Any Chinese primary school that needs relocation can also move to SRJK (C) Damansara, and we could discuss whether to continue using the same school name then," said Lim.

According to the Hua Zong president, Abdullah had reacted ‘positively’ to this suggestion.

Lim said his association also urged the government to build more Chinese primary schools and subsidise the cost.

On the language medium for Science and Mathematics in the UPSR examinations for Chinese school pupils, Abdullah said parents are free to choose whether to let their children sit for the papers in Mandarin or English.

Lim said Hua Zong had also stressed to the premier on the importance of using Mandarin to teach the two subjects.

"We suggested to the PM that Mandarin should be the medium of instruction and for exams for Mathematics and Science in Chinese primary schools. We must enhance the quality of English classes in terms of teaching methods, quality of teachers and so forth to improve proficiency," he said.

Hua Zong also discussed with Abdullah about upgrading Southern College and New Era College to university status.

"We told the PM that it's the Chinese Malaysian society's will to upgrade both colleges to university level. The PM asked for more details on this," said Lim.

Working on inflation

Regarding inflation in the country, Lim said Abdullah told Hua Zong that the government has already started working on it.

"The price control committee will take care of the price control. The PM also mentioned during the meeting that they had asked Bernas to keep rice supply up to three months in stock so that we won't be short of rice supply," he said.

Lim added that the price of oil cannot be controlled by any government as the prices are decided by the global market.

Hua Zong also called on the government to gradually implement meritocracy and be more transparent in the bids for privatisation projects.

Lim said Hua Zong also suggested to the PM to recruit more non-Malays to join the public sector based on meritocracy.

"The PM agreed with us on that matter and replied that he hopes more Chinese will join the public sector," he added.

Hua Zong also suggested to Abdullah that the government should help pig farmers. "The government should solve the problem of land and facilities. Of course, we must solve the pollution problem first," said Lim.

In repsonse to the land trading fraud issue, Lim said Nor has founded a committee to look into the matter.