The country's leading political party Umno has more than three million members. But 125,000 of them are missing!

The status of these untraceable members will be decided when 19,000 party branches hold their meetings in June, said Umno secretary-general Mohd Radzi Sheikh Ahmad today.

According to a Bernama report, he said the party headquarters would issue three types of membership lists for review to every branch ahead of their meetings.

List A will contain the names of all registered members of the branch while List B will have the names of those who have paid their membership fee on or before Dec 31 last year.

List C will have names of untraceable members.

When the branch meetings are in session, he said, a special agenda will be held during which the permanent chairperson will read out the names in List C and the meeting will decide on their status.

The special agenda would enable the party to update its membership list before the divisional elections next year, said Mohd Radzi, who is also home minister.

Apart from this, he said the party had also identified128,000 members who had died and their names had been struck off the list.

Also deleted were about 400 members who are serving in the armed forces.

Mohd Radzi said Umno had set a target to recruit about 100,000 members a year.

Be thrifty

In an unrelated development, Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi wants ministries and agencies to make early and thorough preparations to ensure the Ninth Malaysia Plan (9MP) projects and programmes are implemented straight away once they are announced on March 31.

He said ministry secretaries-general knew in general matters that should be given emphasis and hence, the need for early preparations.

"After the announcement of the ninth plan, don't take two, three or four months to start to implement it," he was quoted as saying by Bernama .

"What is important is not only the contents of the ninth plan which charts the direction of the country's development for the next five years but its effective implementation should also be given attention," he added.

Abdullah said efforts to implement development plans drawn up for the long term must be thought from now to ensure they achieved a high level of implementation.

He also stressed the importance of Malaysians being thrifty and moderate to enable them to tide over their daily expenditures following the recent hike in fuel prices.

He said being thrifty did not mean a person must be stingy but it reflected moderation as encouraged by all religions.

He, however, said being thrifty and moderate should not deter a person from achieving excellence, be it in the workplace or in other aspects of their lives.