Malaysia Minister of Tourism, Azalina are playing a dangerous game here, which might bring more damage to Barisan Nasioanl Federal Government than harming the 5 Pakatan Rakyat states.
First, by cutting funding Tourism funding to all 5 states .
And now, sabotage and smear Pakatan Rakyat states government towards tourism management. Blogger Penanview spot the trouble: Tourism industry being sabotaged?
It is quite an interesting story. First, they (PTAC) send out a press invitation to all the media for some tourism event to be held at 7am to welcome about 3,000 tourists arriving on a luxury cruise liner which is berthing in Penang for the first time.Naturally, all the media assumed the tourism exco or even a representative will be present, as is the norm.
Ah, then this is where it gets interesting. The invite never got out to the tourism exco (Danny Law) or his representative. There was a separate invite from the cruise liner to Danny for another event on board the ship at 10am so he had already asked a representative (Jagdeep) to go on his behalf as he was outstation at that time.
Penang Tourism Action Council (PTAC) may give the reason of “communication breakdown”. However, this is unacceptable excuses, since PTAC know the State government contact person very well. It doesn’t take more than 24 hours to learn who is who, Penang Excos swear in has been held 2 weeks earlier.
Apparently, BN little Napoleon(Animal Farm) are playing a dangerous game of stirring trouble to Pakatan Rakyat states. If this problem spread, it will force the state government sack all high ranking representative from MoT and take control of the state tourism affair.
Azalina UMNO mindset think Pakatan Rakyat states will be burdened by the new payroll of setting up the state tourism committee.
Alas, example from other country has prove otherwise. For example, the Metropolitan of Taipei has its own tourism department that NOT rely on central government funding.