PETALING JAYA: Penang Deputy Chief Minister Dr P Ramasamy would have been more constructive in his reminder had he gone through the detailed report card produced by IDEAS, MP for Bangi Dr Ong Kian Ming said today.
The report evaluated the progress which Pakatan Harapan (PH) had made on 224 sub-promises found in the manifesto, Ong pointed out. He said Ramasamy shouldn’t have merely responded to a headline in an article posted in a news portal.
“His facebook note does not do justice to the extensive work done by IDEAS and the fact that IDEAS statement on the ‘unrealistic’ promises found in the manifesto was directed at a small number of promises, namely the target of one million affordable houses in 10 years and setting the income contingent level of PTPTN loan repayment to start at RM4000 per month,” Ong said in a statement.
“In addition, his statement that ‘more than one year have elapsed since PH’s takeover of the federal government but little has been done to implement the election promises made’ is simply wrong.”
Ong, who is the assistant national director for political education for DAP, said the IDEAS own study shows that 30% of the 224 sub-promises have either been implemented or on track.
The achievements by the one-year old PH government include the “rapid abolition of GST, significant new support to SMEs and an ambitious plan to reduce corruption and reform public procurement”, he said.
This led IDEAS to conclude that “all in all, the government can be proud of the achievements it has made in its first year”, he added.
Ong said this does not mean that the PH government can rest on its laurels.
“I have delivered on my promise made during the speech at the IDEAS public forum to ensure that each PH MP receives a copy of the IDEAS Projek Pantau 2nd report card,” he said.
“I trust that many our backbenchers will use this document as one of the reference points to keep the PH government accountable to our manifesto promises. I hope that others such as Dr. Ramasamy can continue to give constructive feedback to the government so that we can deliver an even better report card to the voters in the next four years prior to GE15.”
