Are Malaysian cabinet ministers hiding their e-mail address from the public or are they simply ignorant of the importance of communicating with the public?

These questions were raised after several ministers failed to acknowledge e-mail sent by Lau Weng San, assistant to Parliamentary Opposition Leader Lim Kit Siang.

"They (ministers) have published the wrong e-mail addresses, do not bother to reply or have no official e-mail account. I will wait until next week for them to acknowledge receipt, failing which I will file a complaint with the Public Complaints Bureau," he said when contacted today.

"All contact details of public officials particularly valid e-mail addresses must be readily available on the respective ministry's homepages or upon request from their offices."

On Nov 8, Lim e-mailed all ministers including Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi over the crisis in higher education. Lau followed up with an e-mail requesting acknowledgement.

The first follow-up e-mail was sent out on Nov 13. Another message was sent n Nov 19, after several bounced back with error message stating failure of delivery or that the recipient's mailbox was full.

Three ministers responded

The failed messages were from Finance Minister II Nor Mohd Yakcop, Rural and Regional Development Minister Abdul Aziz Shamsuddin, Domestic Trade and Consumers Affairs Minister Shafie Apdal and Higher Education Minister Dr Mohd Shafie Salleh.

"My second e-mail to Nor Mohd and Mohd Shafie immediately bounced back with an error message stating that the account does not exist. A reply from Aziz's email came the following day," said Lau, adding that he then managed to trace Mohd Shafie's valid e-mail address.

He said the mystery now revolved around the correct e-mail addresses of Education Minister Hishamuddin Hussein and Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Dr Abdullah Md Zin

"Both can't be found on the ministry website. I contacted (the latter's) personal assistant who refused to provide me his e-mail address and promised to return my call but never did. I was also unable to contact anyone in Hishamuddin's office."

Lau said the assistants to three ministers - Transport, Entrepreneur Development and Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Abdul Nazri Aziz - had promptly acknowledged receipt of Lim's e-mail.

"I don't know the exact status of the rest (of the ministers). I can only presume that they have received it. But this raises the question of whether our ministers are really IT-savvy."

He feels that such a phenomenon is unthinkable given the state of technological advance and urged the PM to prioritise this matter if he was serious about running a people-oriented and clean government.