Email addresses of all government officers including Ministers should be published in public domain.

Email addresses of all Ministers, Deputy Ministers, Parliamentary Secretaries, Chief Secretaries (Ketua Setiausaha), Director-General (Ketua Pengarah) should be published in public domain for members of public to drop in any comments and opinions related to their jobs, and should not be hidden away from the public.

I had on yesterday spent one whole day to collect email addresses of all Cabinet Ministers for Parliamentary Opposition Leader, Lim Kit Siang to send an email to them, highlighting to them that they have collective responsibility for the disastrous plunge of University of Malaya (UM) and Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) in the Times Higher Education Supplement (THES) World University Ranking 2005 on the Top 200 Universities.

It was altogether a time-consuming effort. My first try was to collect those email addresses from the Prime Minister’s Office website as I recall that most Minister’s email addresses are published in that website.

I managed to collect 22 email addresses from a total of 32 Cabinet Ministers, including the Prime minister and the Deputy Prime Minister, which I immediately emailed to Opposition Leader.

The other 10 ministers are Datuk Dr. Abdullah bin Md. Zin, Dato’ Shafie bin Haji Apdal, Dato’ Hishammuddin bin Tun Hussein, Dato’ Seri Dr. Lim Keng Yaik, Datuk Seri Syed Hamid bin Syed Jaafar Albar, Dato’ Dr. Haji Mohd. Shafie bin Salleh, Dato’ Seri Ong Ka Ting, Datuk Wira Dr. Fong Chan Onn, Dato’ Seri Rafidah Aziz and Dato’ Peter Chin Fah Kui.

It was about 11am when I then continue to try my luck with the websites of all these ministries. I spent about half an hour to do a quick check on their websites, including the personal website of Datuk Wira Dr Fong Chan Onn (www.fong.net.my). Their email addresses remained unavailable.

I then decided to personally called-up their offices with hopes to get their Personal Assistants (PAs) or SUSKs (Setiausaha Sulit Kanan) for the email addresses. Opposition Leader Lim Kit Siang called me at 12noon to instruct me to call them also.

It was another heavy task as telephones numbers obtained from ministry websites are merely main lines for the respective ministries. Nobody will answer the call if the receptionists are on leave. There are also a few ministries whereby the numbers are no longer exist, as such I have to either look up for another numbers with PMO website or the Parliament Website, which keep also keep a records of all contact details of Cabinet Ministers and MPs.

So, these are the results:
- Rafidah’s office was only willing to release this email address to me: pejmenteri@miti.gov.my. Her office just called me up and informed that Rafidah’s email is raziz@miti.gov.my to avoid any misunderstandings.
- Emails to Datuk Mustapa and Dato’ Abdul Aziz bin Shamsudin were bounced back. And I took up the matter to call both Ministers’ PA. Datuk Mustapa’s PA, Fauziah said there is some problem with his email (datopa@epu.gov.my) and advised me to forward the email to her as well at fauziahmad@epu.jpm.my. There was no response from Aziz Shamsudin’s office.
- I managed to ring up Ministry of Higher Education in the afternoon. An officer gave me Shafie’s email address (drshafie@mohe.gov.my) but his PA remained unavailable for me to confirm whether they received the email or not. I am shocked today that Nanyang Siang Pau managed to get his email address to be shafie@mohe.gov.my.
- It is the same for Ministry of Energy, Water and Communications (Datuk Seri Lim Keng Yaik) whereby I only managed to get his officer in his office only gives me his PA’s email address (kmlim@tak.gov.my). The officer does not know the complete email address of the Minister. I only know about the Minister email address from today Nanyang Siang Pau (lims@ktak.gov.my)
- I called up the Plantation Ministry (Peter Chin Fah Kui) as well but I was only given his PA’s email address: pybm@kppk.gov.my.
- Ong Ka Ting’s secretary only gave me menteri@kpkt.gov.my but advised me to fax the the email to him. I faxed it out accordingly.
- Shafie Apdal’s PA only gave me his email address (izhar@kpdnhep.gov.my) and refused to give me the minister’s full email address.
- Nobody from Ministry of Human resources picked up my call and ksm@mohr.gov.my is the only email address published on their web. The email address published in today Nanyang Siang Pau, fongco@mohr.gov.my is neither found in the ministry’s website nor his personal website.
- Ministry of Education website (http://www.moe.gov.my) appears to have a special link (http://10.22.70.10/direktori/carian2.cfm) for webmail directory but it is a dead-link unfortunately
- Nobody from Education Ministry, Foreign Affairs Ministry and Datuk Abdullah Mohd Zin (Minister in the PMD) answered my call yesterday.

For the rest of the ministries which I managed to get their ministers’ email addresses, I did a follow up call but there was either no response, probably their staffs are still on leave or the PAs were unavailable for confirmation.

Instead of publishing ministers’ email addresses on the web, some ministries prefer to ask visitors to leave their contact details and complaints with the ministries' websites.The only success that I have so far is Nor Mohamed Yakcop, whereby his PA confirmed yesterday that they had received the email. The only positive news so far.

This morning, I continue to call the Education Ministry, Foreign Affairs Ministry and Datuk Abdullah Mohd Zin (Minister in the PMD). I only managed to talk to Datuk Seri Syed Hamid Albar’s PA, Hamed. I am only given his email address, ahamed@kln.gov.my. As expected, he refused to give me Syed Hamid Albar’s full email address. I have on my hand three numbers on Abdullah Zin but there is no response on calls made to these numbers. One of the numbers even went straight into voicemail.

It was althogether a troublesome and hectic experience as most ministries do not publish minister’s email address on their official websites. Prime Minister’s call for an open, transparent and people-oriented government should be echoed well by Cabinet Ministers by publishing their email addresses in the public domain, in particular their ministries official website.

Lau Weng San
(8th November 2005)