If Rafizi has time to do all that while working as a full-time minister, he is not paying enough attention at his job as a minister.
Nehru Sathiamoorthy
Khairy has a podcast. That is fine. He is not a Minister. He is not a MP. Heck, he is not even a member of a political party. He is basically a private citizen and a private citizen can do whatever they want to do within the ambit of the law. They can start a podcast, drive a Grab or sit at home and play PS5 all day long, and all of us will have no say on it, because as a private citizen, they can do whatever it is they want to do.
Rafizi on the other hand, is an MP and a minister. He actually has an important job to do. So, what the heck is he doing moonlighting as a podcaster?
Rafizi can say that hey, he is not using a single cent of the taxpayer’s money. His podcast is funding itself. But what about the salary he is already receiving to do his job as a MP and a minister. Having a high-ranking position, we might not expect him to clock in and clock out from his job every day, but we do at least expect him to pay attention to his job. How can we expect him to pay attention to his job, when he is telling us that while he is serving as a minister, he is also going to be busy directing his attention to do other things, like moonlight as a podcaster?
Can anybody who works in the government do what Rafizi is intending to do? If tomorrow, the IGP of the police also decides to start a podcast, which is not sanctioned by the force, to roast critics who criticise him or the force, is this ok?
There is also money involved in running a podcast. When you create a podcast, you are creating content which could create a lucrative income. What is Rafizi going to do with this money, which he got by piggybacking on his job as a minister? Is he going to donate it all to charity? I know that politicians and civil servants sometimes do set themselves up with the private sector while they are on the job, so that when they retire from public service, they will have a cushy job at the private sector waiting for them, but this is the first time I am hearing of minister setting themselves up for a stint at the private sector while still working in the public sector. Is this going to be a new normal?
And what exactly is the point of having a podcast where the objective is to get members of the public, academics and opposition cybertroopers who “wish to to ‘roast” a minister to appear on the podcast.
Will anything happen after a cyber trooper, members of the public or academics roast Rafizi or after Rafizi roasts them? If a member of the public appears on Rafizi’s podcast and roasts Rafizi by saying that they feel that Rafizi is not doing a job, and Rafizi roasts them back by saying that they only think like that because they don’t know what they are talking about, he is great at his job and he has done a whole lot of things to make our economy better, and according to this statistic and that poll, the economy is doing great under his charge, will anything change? Will the price of goods become cheaper? Will people wake up the next day and suddenly realise that they now have more options to forward their careers? Will young people be able to afford buying a house?
If not, what is the point of all this?
Are we supposed to just be satisfied with seeing a minister and his critic roasting each other on a podcast? I can understand why our politicians might sometimes feel the need to apply the “bread and circus” method to govern the country, but all I see here is just the circus. Where is the bread?
A minister is an executive position. When people tell you a problem, we don’t expect you to appear on a podcast to explain to us the nature of the problem. Yes, we expect you to speak about the problem we tell you, but we expect you to answer us through action, not just words.
Even if you manage to prove to the world through your podcast that you are the smartest guy in the country and nobody – be it a critic, an academic or a cybertrooper – can hold a candle to you, so what? Is the problem settled?
I actually think that it might not be a bad idea for Rafizi to be a podcaster. I have long felt that the job of a man of action is not one that is fitting for Rafizi. Rafizi takes too much delight in concepts and formulas and ideas to be an effective man of action. I have always felt that we would all be better off if he takes a position as a professor or an ideologue or a speaker or a podcaster, where he can spend all his time, focus and energy telling us what he knows without us having to expect him to do anything about it, but instead of moonlighting as a podcaster, could he perhaps do it full time? A podcaster, I am sure, is also a full-time job. You have to prepare, allocate time and do the necessary research in order to do it well. If Rafizi has time to do all that while working as a full-time minister, he is not paying enough attention at his job as a minister.
So rather than half arse both his job as a minister and a podcaster, why not just pick one and do it properly? Why not be a full-time podcaster, who can devote all his time and energy to research and prepare for his podcasts properly, and let us have another minister of economy, who will take action when we tell him a problem, instead of just giving us an explanation, or worse, “burn” the person who brings up the matter to his attention.