The Malaysian Insider – 8 hours agoRELATED CONTENT
- Nazri dismisses MCA’s criticism, says party irrelevant after last election
Datuk Seri Mohamed Nazri Abdul Aziz has brushed off MCA's criticism of him for supporting a Penang government plan to ban foreigners from being hired to cook Penang street food, saying that the party and its views had become irrelevant after the last general election.
The Tourism and Culture Minister said he was puzzled over MCA's push to allow foreigners to cook hawker fare, arguing instead that the party should be more concerned about employment of locals.
"I don't care about what they have to say. I only care about preserving the taste of local hawker food.
"To me, you cannot ask a Bangladeshi to cook Chinese food and expect it to taste just as good because his taste buds would be different from locals," Nazri said.
As such, the minister said he supported Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng's idea despite the chief minister being a political foe, adding that his main concern was attracting tourists to Malaysia.
"To me, Lim Guan Eng is right in this matter because my concern is tourists coming to Malaysia.
"Penang hawker food is famous," he said.
His comments come in the wake of remarks by MCA youth wing secretary-general Leong Kim Soon, who took the tourism minister to task over his support of Lim's plan to bar foreigners from cooking street fare.
MCA had said that Nazri's endorsement gave the impression that Putrajaya was agreeable with the idea.
Nazri told The Malaysian Insider that he did not care about what MCA had to say, especially since the party was no longer relevant having been rejected by voters in the 13th general election.
Nazri also questioned why MCA was politicising the issue, and hit out at the party for being overly concerned about employment of foreigners instead of locals.
"Why are they so bothered about foreigners being employed?
"No wonder they lost in the last election because they don't seem to have a proper direction," he said.
MCA's Leong had said that if foreign workers and local cooks could prepare a meal with the same tastes and standards, the crux of the problem lay with the ability to handle foreign workers.
“Often times, the foreign workers serve the meal after the ingredients were prepared and mixed.
“There is no so-called secret touch when it involves prepared ingredients and serving,” Leong has said.
Nazri said that he agreed with Lim on the proposal to bar foreigners from being hired to cook local street food outlets to protect the state’s food heritage.
He had said that the state would be hard pressed to market the Penang street food brand if it had foreigners cooking it.
"It will not be the same. Locals must be proud that their food has made Penang famous.
"Locals must come forward to maintain and preserve the standard, quality and heritage of Penang food," he had said.
Leong in questioning Nazri's support had said that the opponents to the proposal had argued that they hired foreign cooks to cope with labour shortage. – August 3, 2014.
