Youth and Sports Minister Khairy Jamaluddin said whoever controlled the government then, they will have to respect the TN50’s aspirations as they were not the government’s nor an individual’s but that of the people.
“The most important part of the TN50 is it is the bottom-up approach, meaning it (TN50) is the voice of the people. So, you (the current government) are duty-bound to respect the aspirations (TN50) because they are the people’s.
“So this bottom-up approach allows for TN50 to be insulated from any political interference,” he said during one of the panel sessions at the Global Transformation Forum 2017 here yesterday.
Khairy was one of the panellists in the session on Malaysia’s Transformation: Delivering on Government Promises.
Other members included Chief Secretary to the Government Ali Hamsa, International Trade and Industry Minister Mustapa Mohamed and Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Abdul Rahman Dahlan.
On the difference between TN50 and Vision 2020, Khairy said, the former’s aspirations were more specific as compared with the latter.
He said Vision 2020 consisted mostly of general aspirations.
“The challenges that were outlined (in the Vision 2020) were general. They were wonderful challenges and aspirations, but they were general in the sense that they were motherhood aspirations,” he said.
Among the challenges of Vision 2020, Khairy said, were the creation of a truly united Malaysian nation and a caring society.
“There were no specific markers of milestones for us (ministries). Because of that, it was wonderfully general aspirations that people can relate to,” he said.
He said in TN50, the government set a specific target about the country in 2050 and not just general statements or aspirations.
“Prime Minister Najib Razak said (during the introduction of TN50) that we want to be among the top 20 countries in the world (by 2050) in terms of human development index, gross domestic product per capita, innovation and even in terms of our football ranking,” he said.
Meanwhile, Rahman said, the introduction of the TN50 did not mean the government would abandon Vision 2020.
“Just because the architect of the Vision 2020 is now in the opposition (side), it doesn’t mean that the vision has been left out or abandoned by the government,” he said.