The Prime Minister’s Office has corrected poorly-written English captions on its website of PM Najib Abdul Razak paying his respects to the late Singapore prime minister Lee Kuan Yew.    

The captions became fodder against Deputy Education Minister P Kamalanathan who said Malaysians speak better English than Singaporeans.

The initial captions, which sounded like a poor translation job, said that Lee had "died in Parliament" and that he was "detained" in hospital for "pneumonia severe".

The caption earlier read:

"Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak signed a book of condolences for the death of the Prime Minister of Singapore Lee Kuan Yew, at the Singapore Embassy, today. Also seen is the Singapore High Commissioner to Malaysia, Vanu Gopala Menon.

"Kuan Yew died at 3:18am yesterday at the Singapore General Hospital after being detained in hospital since February 5 for pneumonia severe. He was 91 years old."

Another caption had read:

"Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak and his wife, Datin Seri Rosmah Mansor present to pay their last respects to the late first Prime Minister of Singapore, Lee Kuan Yew, who had died in Parliament today.

"Also seen the Prime Minister of Singapore Lee Hsien Loong (right). Funeral service will be held at 2pm, Sunday, at the University Cultural Center, National University of Singapore, followed by cremation a Mandal Crematorium closed."

Both captions have been corrected although the second caption still has missing words.

As at 5.49pm, the second caption reads:

"Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak and his wife, Datin Seri Rosmah Mansor present to pay their last respects to the late first Prime Minister of Singapore, Lee Kuan Yew, today.

"Also seen the Prime Minister of Singapore Lee Hsien Loong (right). The funeral service will be held at 2 pm, Sunday at the University Cultural Centre, National University of Singapore, followed by cremation ceremony at Mandai Crematorium."

Kamalanathan has been under fire for his remark on the standard of English in Malaysia, with Ong’s colleague and Bukit Bendera MP Zairil Khir Johari pointing out that only two out of 100,000 students scored Band 6 (very good user) in last year’s Malaysian University English Test.

In response, Kamalanathan said he was basing his views on the the EF English Proficiency Index (EF EPI) which ranks Malaysia as 12th and Singapore 13th out of 63 countries raked for English proficiency.