PM’s choice whether CEP lives beyond 100 days, minister says
Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad has the prerogative to decide whether to extend the advisory Council of Eminent Persons (CEP), Foreign Minister Datuk Saifuddin Abdullah has said.
(MMO) – When it was formed, it was announced that the quasi-official body will exist for the new administration’s first 100 days in an advisory capacity to the Cabinet.
With less than 20 days left, questions are being asked if the council should extend its service to the government past then.
“That is up to the prime minister. But let me underline something that people have forgotten.
“We came in as a new government; Tun was sworn in as PM [and was] for two weeks without a Cabinet. If we understand that situation, one will be more understanding as to why the CEP was established in the first place,” Saifuddin told Malay Mail in an exclusive interview.
The CEP is headed by former finance minister Tun Daim Zainuddin and includes Tan Sri Zeti Akhtar Aziz, Tan Sri Hassan Marican, economist Jomo Kwame Sundaram, and “Sugar King” Robert Kuok.
Their qualifications are not in doubt, but the secretive nature with which the CEP operates has invited criticism about its true powers and purview.
