Mas Ermieyati cited the number of tourist arrivals, which included those from China, in the four years she was the deputy tourism minister and compared it with the figures so far this year.

“In 2015, there were 25.7 million tourist arrivals, of whom 1.6 million were from China. The next year, overall tourist arrivals went up 4% to 26.8 million, with 2.1 million from China. The best thing is that tourism revenue increased 18.9% to RM82 billion that year.

“In 2017, there were 25.9 million tourist arrivals with 2.3 million from China. And in 2018, there were a total of 25.8 million, of whom 2.9 million were from China.

“(Tiong) has set a target of 27.3 million tourist arrivals for this year, but from January to September, there have only been 18.38 million. This is very far off compared with when I was the deputy minister,” she said in a video on Instagram.

The Wanita Bersatu chief urged Tiong to focus on his work as tourism minister and not to cover up his mistakes or weaknesses by shifting the blame to others.

Mas Ermieyati also “retracted” her statement in the Dewan Rakyat calling for Tiong to be moved to another ministry, and said she would instead suggest to the prime minister that Tiong be dropped from the Cabinet.

On Monday, Mas Ermieyati slammed Tiong over his statement regarding signboards in Chinese, saying it was his responsibility as the minister in charge of culture to also defend Malaysia’s national language.

The Masjid Tanah MP then suggested that the prime minister consider changing Tiong’s portfolio to one that focussed on enforcement action.

In response, Tiong questioned what Mas Ermieyati had done for the country when she was the deputy tourism minister under the Najib Razak administration. She was still in Umno then.