Azalina: Finance Minister Material...Not

So, why am I being so critical of our Tourism Minister? Surely being a qualified lawyer with masters in law, she would have chosen her words rather carefully right? To me, lawyers are quite concise and precise with their words and often, their choice of words are well suited to the occasions and all the many lawyers I know, almost all are pleasant speakers.

So anyway, this is not about lawyers. This is about why I think she is no Finance Minister material. Of course, one can say I am being hasty with my judgements as who is to know if she is capable unless she is tasked with such responsibilities?

I therefore humbly submit the following extracts from an article published on the Edge online on why I find her assessment of things are rather questionable if not downright silly.

Point 1, on the ministry's three-pronged strategy to boost tourism:

“We want to increase domestic tourist activities to act as a buffer, in case there is a decline in foreign tourists. We can also encourage locals to spend more here than abroad.

“The other plan we have is to define Singapore as a domestic market. The country is by far our most important target market, as a substantial number of arrivals are from there. Singaporeans’ shopping and travelling habits are similar to Malaysians, so it makes sense to include them as domestic tourists,” she said.

Azalina said the third strategy was to emphasise on niche travel markets like eco-tourism.

Source: http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2006/02/27/1140888775438.html

Noticed something weird? How in the world classifying Singapore as domestic market will boost tourism? Aren't each and every one of the tourist entering and exiting a tourism site count the same? Just because one is labelled as Singaporean (foreign), it wouldn't count for two or three right if we designate as domestic?

And point 2, on whether the ministry was worried by recent reports that local credit card debts stood at some RM20 billion:

“Banks are becoming prudent in lending, and this could translate into prudent spending habits among cardholders. If we look at what card issuers are saying, spending habits have remained somewhat steady, so I don’t see this as a problem,” she said.

Source: http://heyugly.org/

How is a prudent lending policy translate into prudent spending habits? This really made me wonder. Let's tackle this from the perspective of existing and new borrowers.

For existing borrowers who have been spending less than prudent but manage to service the minimal payments most of the time, how is the lenders implementing prudent policy will make these people be prudent?

For new cardholders, how will the borrowers' prudent lending policy ensure that they don't have potential reckless spenders on hand? Assuming the lenders do manage to filter some of these who incurred huge credit card bills out, how will they filter the ones approved from turning reckless at later stage?

So, yes, based on this two points alone I wouldn't trust her with Finance Ministry. In fact, I often wonder why our ministers say the darnest things. Are they aware of the implications of what they are saying?