I thank you for the honour of being invited to the Buddhist Maha Vihara to the illumination of this 115 years old temple in conjunction with Wesak 2010 celebrations.
The celebration of Wesak is to commemorate the birth, enlightenment and passing or attainment of Nirvana by the Great Lord Siddhartha Buddha. It is time for us, Buddhist, to reaffirm our commitment and ponder the practice of Buddha's teachings.
I also note that in your program you have allocated time during the Wesak period , for children to practice their devotion.
First of all, let me welcome all of you to the Ministry of Transport for this brief but meaningful Integrity Pact signing ceremony between Port Klang Authority and consultants bidding for projects in PKA.
This Integrity Pact is one of the recommendations of the Ad - Hoc Committee on Corporate Governance in PKA/PKFZ which was chaired by Datuk Paul Low, President of Transparency International Malaysia. The Committee was set up by me in June 2009, soon after the release of the PricewaterhouseCoopers report on PKFZ. PKA is the first Government agency to implement this policy
It is a great honour and privilege for me to be here to witness and share the pride of this Convocation ceremony. This 10th Convocation of Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman is indeed going to be a memorable event for everyone here. I would like to extend my heartiest congratulations to all the graduands and their family, and their loved ones.
I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate the Malaysian Retailer Chains Association (MRCA) and 8TV for their partnership in hosting and organising the inaugural MRCA 8TV Entrepreneur Awards.
As advisor to MRCA, I am pleased that the association has come a long way since its inception in 1992. The quantum leap transformation is testament of the power of collaboration, coming together as a team to harness synergy amongst like-minded industry players, particularly from the retail chain sector.
We live in extraordinary times, both within and outside the Party. Amidst internal strife, MCA is still facing the challenges of regaining the trust and confidence of the people and community that our constitution and founding fathers swore to protect.
I am very proud to be here today to celebrate Chinese New Year with all of you – entrepreneurs and successful people of all industries. To be exact, the SMIs – the catalyst of our country which comprise of 99.2% of all enterprises. You are all the drivers of Malaysia economic growth and it is most meaningful to have an opportunity to get together and celebrate this auspicious event together.
With Chinese New Year around the corner, many will be heading back to their hometowns to celebrate the festivity. It is also during such long festive periods that we read media reports about road accidents during the exodus back home.
Each year, the Government spends millions of ringgit to make our roads safer and we are progressing well in this respect. This is despite recent media reports about the growing number of accidents on Malaysian routes. Some of these media reports, if interpreted wrongly, can be misleading.
It is with great pleasure for me to be here today to be part of the appreciation ceremony of HOPE programme.
As the patron of HOPE, I have seen this project through from conception to launch, and followed its progressed keenly as I believe it to be essential for our growing nation.
HOPE took off in 2006, with 8 participating institutions pledging seats of excess capacity of their respective universities, university colleges and colleges.
First and foremost, I would like to express my gratitude to AirAsia and AirAsia X for inviting me to this ceremony today. It is a great pleasure for me to be here, on this momentous occasion to mark another significant route expansion of AirAsia and AirAsia X into 5 metro cities in India, namely, Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Chennai.
