I posed a supplementary query in Parliament to Question No. 5 to the Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, Senator Tan Sri Dr. Koh Tsu Koon who had boasted about the great success and achievements of Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s Government Transformation Programme to date.

Puncturing his balloon, I pointed out that the purpose of Najib’s GTP is to restore national and international confidence in the efficiency, independence, integrity and professionalism of key national institutions but the reality in the past two years had been the very opposite – with even greater plunge of public and international confidence in the efficiency, independence, integrity and professionalism of key national institutions like the police, judiciary, elections commission and the anti-corruption commission, the MACC.

I pointed out that the continued plunge in public and international confidence in the key national institutions had become an usual occurrence and the reasons could be gleaned from daily online news reports.

I quoted to Parliament a sample from this morning’s Malaysiakini, viz:

• “Dr Jeyakumar detained, Ibrahim Ali walks free”;

• “Yes, poems are now a national security threat” and

• “Umno Youth ‘threatened’ to torch PKR HQ”.

Five hours later, there have been even more such disturbing headlines in Malaysiakini highlighting the “madness” enveloping the country and why Malaysians are voting with their feet and foreign investors given more reasons why they should not direct FDIs to Malaysia, viz:

• “Utusan overdrives on Bersih ‘communist’ plot”;

• “Bishop calls for an end to Christian bashing”;

• “’Catch criminals, not protestors’”;

• “M’sian judges evade constitutional issues”;

• “Gov’t urged to justify RM48m upkeep of PM, DPM residences”.

I asked Koh whether in view of such catastrophic drop in public and international confidence in the key national institutions, which highlights the depressing failure of Najib’s GTP, this subject would be tabled for priority discussion in the Cabinet for remedial measures to be taken.

Koh gave a “cock-and-bull” reply which totally ignored the substance of my supplementary question, resulting in my standing up in Parliament to protest that Koh had failed to address my supplementary question, leading my describing Koh as “pelari” or “escapist”!

Clearly Koh is incapable of answering this question. But is there anybody in Cabinet and Government, including the Prime Minister, capable of answering it?