Well, having worked in the Malaysian government in the past, I can easily imagine how it was allowed to reach this point. In fact, I would have predicted as much. The whole 'institutional culture' in all government service in Malaysia is to do exactly and only what your job description specifies. Critical thinking and problem solving are not in any job descriptions, unfortunately, and essentially people simply follow orders and make no suggestions for action unless they are instructed to look into a solution for an issue. So any spontaneous and urgent problems get kicked up to the next person in charge until the issue becomes big enough to get the attention of somebody with authority, who then orders the subordinates to find a solution. That's what we've been seeing as this crisis has developed.
