SHAH ALAM: MMEA and ESSCOM officially under Home Ministry. The Attorney’s General Chambers on Jan. 22 published the Ministers of the Federal Government Order 2019, which listed the people appointed as Federal ministers by the King and their deputies, ministries, departments, agencies and laws under their responsibilities.
According to the gazette, the responsibilities of the ministers and deputies to the ministries and agencies were effective on the day of their appointments to the post. Prime Minister Tun Mahathir Mohamad (appointed as the Prime Minister on May 10, 2018), deputy, ministers and deputies are responsible for the Prime Minister’s Department and agencies under the department.
MMEA and ESSCOM were both previously been under the purview of the Prime Minister’s Department since their inception in 2004 and 2014, respectively, now come under the Home Ministry with Minister Muhyiddin Yassin (appointed to the post on May 21, 2018 and deputy minister, Aziz Jamman (July 2, 2018). As Muhyiddin was made the Home Minister on July 21, 2018, this means MMEA and ESSCOM”s transfer to the ministry became effective on that date as stated by the gazette.
The government had announced its intention to transfer MMEA and ESSCOM to the Home Ministry shortly after the appointment of Muhyiddin as Home Minister as part of its shakeup of the administration. This was reflected in the 2019 budget where allocations for both ministries came under the Home Ministry. It became official with the publication of the gazette.
Other departments under the Home Ministry according to the gazette are the police, RELA, AKSEM (the border enforcement agency), registration, immigration, prisons and the national anti-narcotics agency. The ministry and its agencies and departments are responsible for the enforcement of some 40 laws.
It is not known yet whether the ministry will work to integrate both the MMEA and the marine police into a single maritime enforcement agency. The government had the opportunity to do just that back in 2000 (when Tun was the fourth PM) but it failed to do so. So the chance of the merger of both remained highly unlikely.
— Malaysian Defence
If you like this post, buy me an espresso. Paypal Payment
View Comments (7)
On the question of AKSEM. How does the Regimen Sempadan fits into all of this?
I strongly believe that the marine police and even kastam marin and jabatan laut should be under APMM. Peacetime patrol duties done by navy OPVs should also be handed over to APMM.
Right now Jabatan Laut is under federal or state government?
Reply
Nothing, AKSEM are mostly based at the build up border area, towns and kampungs and does road blocks along roads near border. Regimen Sempadan patrol the jungle borders in the jungle and along rivers (along Sg Golok).
Jabatan Laut comes under the Transport Ministry.
MMEA from PMD to Home Ministry, while Civil Defence from HM to PMD.
Not sure its a good idea for MMEA to absorb Jab Laut's responsibilities. MMEA Act have to be amended, AFAIK JL more concerned about ship safety, safe navigation.
Civil defence tasks IMO should be absorbed into bomba and the unit be disbanded.
Btw 4243 name is KM Kota Belud
As for the Pertahanan Awam. Why does it use military ranks and why is it that they give out all these honorary ranks to many like it is out of fashion? There are even artistes with the rank of kolonel given out by Pertahanan Awam
Reply
No idea but it is likely they want to get people to volunteer so they think the best way is to get well known famous people as honorary members. As this people are well known already of course they will be given high ranks. MINDEF previously did this as well though their honorary ranks are limited by law. Their experience showed that giving honorary ranks to famous people never gets other people to volunteer.
There are various things that shouldn’t be done. First on the list is having the Defence Minister and the PM (in previous governments) wear camo during visits/events. Surely this is something the MAF’s top brass should not encourage and should put a firm stop to. Or was it them who started the practice to curry favour? Not only do politicians look silly in camo but they have no business wearing camo along with the honourary insignia.
I also don’t understand why RELA and customs must have their own camo uniforms (IMO RELA should be disbanded - full stop/period - its role should be undertaken by the auxiliary police). The only organisations that should have camo are the MAF, MMEA, police and Bomba. Giving our honoury ranks to singers and sports people, is meaningless. Cheapens the rank, provides no tangible value and makes us look silly.....
Something else I find pointless is having troops make into an art/scheme the face camo they apply to their faces. Face camo is intended to prevent light from reflecting of the skin (mainly at night) and is applied roughly; not intended to be an art scheme which makes the person look silly and serves zero purpose. Face camo is also normally used only by troops in direct contact with the enemy. In our case artillery and vehicle crews also have face camo.
Curious as to whose idea the “para dance” was? Was it intended to foster regimental pride and if so has it served its purpose? To me it looks very much like the Maori haka. I’ve often wondered what foreign brass and troops think when they see our paras do it.
Reply
On politicians wearing military camo, that's stopped already by Mat Sabu. Mindef has already stopped giving honorary ranks to people
Why should bomba have camo? To hide and blend in the fire?
IMO rela is okay-ish, as it is very clear it is not police, and prevents people from abusing the likeliness of police to extort people etc.
Civil defence IMO needs to be merged with bomba. It does too many similar things.
Why do we need blue smurf camo for air force, and grey camo for navy anyway? Why not all of them use army camo if they need to use camo. If not, their individual dress is already different anyway.
The first to cone out with a navy/air force blue camo were the Brits, Yanks and Aussies. Others, like us. just followed. Whist I understand the need for some to have a service centric camo (looks nice and peovides a sense of service centric pride), I have to question whether we really need it. The RMN light blue shirt/dark blue pants (not sure what No. it is) was fine, it looked good.
Something else we decided to follow, based on what others were doing, was the slanted chest pockets. These really became visible in the 90!s and 2000’s but as far back as the 70’s the Brits already had slanted chest pockets on their Pattern 68 camo. Granted, there is utility in having slanted chest pockets.
A few years ago I noticed Gerak Khas people wearing “special forces” shoulder tabs. Very American and not something we’d usually do. I hope the days never comes when a general decides we must have berets with camo.