Limiting CM's term, Melcat to make Malacca govt effective

MALACCA: Anchored by the slogan "Melaka Berwibawa" (Excellent Malacca) with a "Smart, Green, Clean" tagline, Chief Minister Adly Zahari focuses on implementing good governance to ensure that the Malacca state government effectively fulfils its responsibilities for the well-being of the people.
He said to realise this, two initial initiatives would be implemented; one is to limit the office of the Chief Minister to two terms and the other is to set up a Malacca Competency, Accountability and Transparency (Melcat) committee.
He said the initiatives would potentially pave the way for more initiatives to ensure efficiency and effectiveness of the state government in fulfilling the mandate given by the people.
"We laid down the two-term period for the chief minister's post so he could maximise the available time to carry out his duties with excellence.
"A chief minister has to complete his task within a certain period of time, so he has to use as best as possible the 24 hours in a day, a month and a year to figure out what to do within two terms," he told Bernama.
Adly said Melcat would also assess all aspects of the state government and related mechanisms including the effectiveness of the chief minister, state executive councillors and officers of government departments and agencies.
"All public reports and criticisms can be brought for discussion at the committee level, meaning they can hold a public hearing on the issues. The establishment of the committee has been announced at state government level and would be discussed further in a state-level meeting," he said.
He said the proposed Melcat would be brought to the State Legislative Assembly for approval and chaired by a state assemblyman who may call public hearings to investigate any arising issues.
On the state government's financial management, he said basically it should have a budget surplus to ensure balance and effectiveness.
"We have had just two weeks to look at the overall financial position; we are still in the process of assessing the expenditure method. For the past 10 years the state government had been facing the problem of deficit spending, so to be realistic, we do not want to overspend.
"So initially, what we will do is to review cost-saving approaches. For example, the previous government spent RM3.3 million for the state level Hari Raya celebration but we will only spend RM1.6 million," he said.
On the mechanism of reducing the state's debts totalling RM845 million, Adly said the restructuring of all state departments and agencies would lower management expenditure to about 60% to 70% of the state's annual budget.
"We'll clean up the current management; some government agencies are being abolished; we are also looking at cutting emoluments, salaries, contracts particularly involving high level officials, and 30% to 70% of development expenditure (from the annual budget)," he said.
Referring to the Pakatan Harapan manifesto that it would return 10% of annual tax payments to the state government, he said the move would have tremendous impact as Malacca paid about RM5 billion annual tax to the Federal government.
"Malacca will get RM500 million a year and if calculated for two years it is more than enough to pay the debt. But we understand the current economic situation of the Federal government and will discuss it," he said.
Adly said if the Federal government could not pay the amount in cash, the state government hoped it would deduct the state's debts in a win-win situation for all parties. — Bernama