A Malaysian Lunch

By
Zairil Khir Johari

While everyone spent the last weekend mulling over the recently announced Budget 2011, I spent mine immersed in chocolates and experiencing a brief moment of notoriety on Lim Kit Siang’s blog.

It was back to business on Monday as I met up with two old friends over lunch. In true Malaysian fashion, our conversation flirted with everything from the erection, oops, election budget to matters of national (un)importance and just generally anything that came into mind. All this over banana leaf and lots of (burp) curry. The following is a parable of our discussion:

Friend A (special officer to a certain executive in a certain GLC):
 Service is so slow. Why does it take so long to make one iced Milo?

Friend B (self-employed IT entrepreneur):
 Nothing new about that…

Me (chocoholic):
 Yeah, what do you expect? We don’t get first class service on private jets like you.

Friend A:
 Hey that’s not fair! Just because my bosses like to lap it up in luxury doesn’t mean I enjoy any of it. You know, the amount of mis-management I see everyday, it’s no wonder we’re in such a big mess. Don’t even get me started. You think you’ve seen cost overruns?

Friend B:
 Haha, that’s Malaysian accountability for you. Plenty of meat for those in power, but hardly any bones for the likes of us. Speaking of cost overruns, have you seen the progress of our new National Palace?

Me:
 Hah. Another mega-project that has gone out of control. Did you know that from an initially budgeted RM400 million, it’s now gone up to RM800 million? And counting!

Friend B:
 RM800 million? That’s enough to build at least 50 schools. Or a couple state-of-the-art hospitals.

Me:
 Yes, it seriously shouldn’t cost that much to build a house, not when 40% of households in our country live on less than RM2,000 a month. That money could have been used to supplement nearly 80,000 low-income families with an extra RM1,000 a month for one whole year!

Friend A:
 Exactly. I think the government really has its priorities confused. A successful economy should be measured by the economic conditions of its people, and not purely by its gross developmental value or output, because income differences are not reflected. Mega projects that enrich a few but neglect the population at large bring no real economic value.

Friend B:
 What are you complaining about? Your company gets most of these projects…

Friend A:
 Haha, that’s true. But I tell you, more can be done with these new economic schemes, like the ETP and er, NKRAs and what have you. You know, those programmes run by the Kopi Minister’s colleague, that former MAS fellow.

Me:
 Ah you mean Idris Jala, the Minister of Acronyms. He’s got yet another acronym now, called KIJA. Do you guys know that this ‘Kementerian Idris Jala’, as it were, has been allocated a whopping RM12.59 billion for the next two years? This isn’t even taking into account various consultancy fees and salaries to be paid out for contractual work on their projects. For that kind of money, I pray there will be sufficient return on investment, or it’ll be another story of cost overruns on nonviable projects, like the Bakun Dam. *winks at Friend A*

Friend A:
 Very funny. But honestly, there’s one more thing that really upsets me. All this business about our highways. Isn’t it the responsibility of a government to build roads for its people? It’s a basic infrastructure….

Friend B:
 Spot on. Privatising the highways is a bad enough idea, the worst part is the totally lop-sided agreements. To make things worse, they’ve just announced 6 new highways, all without open tender! Again!

Friend A:
 *shakes head in despair* And we didn’t even get one of those contracts!

Me:
 Haha! I think the really frustrating part is how the government is trying to pull a hood over our eyes by putting on a show about how toll hikes will be frozen for the next 5 years. What wasn’t mentioned was the astronomical amount of money that has to be paid in compensation! RM5 billion over 5 years, and that doesn’t include RM2.5 billion already owing to PLUS. That’s RM7.5 billion my friends!

Friend A:
 That’s just ridiculous! In fact, it makes less sense. Tolls are paid by users of the road, whereas the compensation will mean the whole country will be paying for something only a few people use! Whoever negotiated these agreements must have no common sense!

Friend B:
 Sigh. So much inefficiency. If I run my business like our government I’d have declared bankruptcy a long time ago. We’re lucky we still have oil, though it won’t last forever. Speaking of inefficiencies… where is my Milo?

Our conversation didn’t end there, but let’s not venture into unsuitable print material…

Nota Bene:

I returned from lunch to learn that the federal government has approved an additional RM147 million for the new National Palace, bringing total costs to a ballooning RM935 million!

                This entry was posted on Thursday, 21 October 2010, 1:09 pm and is filed under
Economics
,
Financial Scandals
. You can follow any responses to this entry through
RSS 2.0
.


Malaysia in the Era of Globalization #37

By
M. Bakri Musa

Chapter 5:  Understanding Globalization (Cont’d)

Trading in Money

Malaysia cannot modernize its financial sector and capital markets in part because its leaders are stuck in the pre-globalization mindset, especially in their attitude towards money and capital.  While to consumers everywhere money is now simply a convenient medium of commercial transaction, to Mahathir and other Third World nationalists it assumes a more important symbolic function.  Currency represents the nation’s sovereignty.  It is instructive that one of the first orders of business for many newly independent nations is to declare a new currency or to rename its old one.  Malaysia has the ringgit, and to symbolize its new beginning, prints a portrait of its king on the paper notes.  Money is no longer simply money, rather a powerful symbol of the nation’s sovereignty.

             It is this symbolic attachment to the currency that irrationally dictates many economic policies.  Governments often go to extreme lengths to defend the value of their currency when market conditions dictate otherwise, as happened in Thailand and Malaysia during the 1997 crisis.  They forget that the value of a currency is a reflection of consumers’ and investors’ confidence in the underlying economy.  A weak economy will have a weak currency, regardless of the nationalistic frenzy used to whip support for it.  Malaysia lost billions and nearly exhausted its foreign exchange reserves in the early part of the 1997 economic crisis trying to defend the value of the ringgit, only to admit finally that the market was correct.

             Even as a medium of commercial transaction, money or more accurately cash, has been supplanted by other instruments.  The most widespread is the credit card.  Even when I travel abroad I carry very little cash, only a pair of credit cards with the second as insurance in case the first is stolen or lost.  With that I could purchase anything and execute any transaction.  It is also safer and more convenient; if stolen all I have to do is notify my bank and the card would be rendered useless and a new one reissued.  In practical terms my credit card with my picture on it is as good as the paper money with the King’s portrait on it!

             To an increasing number of people today money is just a commodity, like rubber and sugar.  And like those commodities there is a market in money futures, that is, in predicting or anticipating its future values.  Just as sugar “futures” traders take the risks from the producers and consumers of sugar, so do currency traders take the risk from lenders and borrowers.

             In its simplified form a commodity futures trader works thus.  Imagine I am a beverage manufacturer and use tons of sugar every day for my product.  I cannot afford to have the price of sugar, my prime ingredient, fluctuate wildly.  I need it to be relatively stable so I can budget appropriately.  But the price of sugar, like other commodities, will vary depending on weather, political upheavals, world markets, and labor disputes, among others.  As a wholesale consumer, I do not have the time or expertise to monitor the various market conditions affecting the price of sugar, otherwise I cannot devote my full energy towards producing my primary product.  All I need is a steady supply of sugar at a reasonable and predictable price.  Enter the futures trader.  For a fee he will guarantee for me my supply of sugar for the next few months (or years) at an agreed upon price.  If the price of sugar drops he will reap his profit, but if Castro throws his usual political antics and the price of sugar suddenly jumps, then I will be protected but the trader will lose in the deal.

             And if that sugar commodity trader were prudent, he would spread his risks by diversifying.  That is, he would also invest in other commodity futures so that if he were to lost money in sugar, he would be able to recoup in soya beans, for example.

             Traders in currency futures too serve a similar function.  Assume MAS were to borrow US $100 million to buy a 747 jet and have to repay the loan in US dollars.  MAS’s revenue however, is in ringgit (at least the bulk of it).  If the ringgit appreciates in value with respect to the US dollar, then MAS will need fewer ringgit to service the loan.  That would be a bonanza to the company.  However if the ringgit were to depreciate, then MAS would have to spend more to service the same loan.  Small variations in the exchange rate would not be disruptive, but wild fluctuations could put the company under by making the amount of loan payments unpredictable.

             Competent financial managers guard against such unanticipated changes by “hedging,” that is, for a small down payment (“options”) he would be guaranteed a certain amount of dollars at a preset conversion rate.  As with the sugars options discussed earlier, if the dollar appreciates then the currency trader would absorb the loss and spare MAS the added costs.  By securing such options, MAS would be acquiring an insurance policy against the potential weakening of the ringgit.  The debacle that snared MAS and many other Malaysian companies during the 1997 economic crisis was in part because they borrowed huge sums of dollars that were “unhedged.”  When the ringgit depreciated, the costs of those loans effectively went up.

             Thirty years ago almost all cross-border transfers of currencies were for payments of goods and services, that is, for payments of actual trading.  Today the overwhelming bulk of cross-border movements of funds are by currency traders using money as a commodity, trying to exploit changes and small differentials in exchange and interest rates in the different markets.  Every day over trillion dollars are sloshing around the world’s money markets, and only a very tiny fraction of that is being used to pay for actual physical trade in goods and services.

             Money is now a commodity, to be traded across borders just like sugar and rubber futures, and with as much sentiment as for those products.  Just as traders at the Chicago Commodity Board earn more than the farmers who produce those commodities, so do currency traders make more money that those whose hard work generated those cash in the first place.  Mahathir may rail against these speculators but they are not likely to disappear.  I have always regarded futures trading as nothing more than 90 percent gambling and 10 percent useful economic activities (protecting producers and consumers from the risk of price volatility), but as long as it serves even that small an economic function, it will remain.  No government can outlaw it; doing so would only drive them underground.  Then they would become 99 percent gambling.

             Left wing social science professors may condemn these commodity traders.  Why should these young hustlers in their bowties and red suspenders working in the comfort of their air-conditioned trading pits, and who cannot tell apart the wheat from the shaft, be earning more than the hard working wheat farmers?  It is sinful and unjust.  If anyone should benefit from any increase in the price of grain, it should be the farmers, not those speculators.  This was the theory behind the Soviet collective farms, with the farmers (with the help of the state) controlling not only the production but also the distribution and marketing of their products.

             The collapse of the Soviet farms proved the fallacy of such a system.  Farmers should stick to farming, marketers to marketing, and risk takers (commodity traders) to managing financial risks.

             Currency traders like George Soros indeed make a killing – when they guess or gamble right.  But when they are wrong, they eat more than humble pie.  They could be wiped out.  The near collapse of the billion-dollar hedge fund Long Term Capital Management in 1999 is a grim reminder of the stakes in this new form of “trading.”

             Economists and others who have long tried to grapple with how to control or tame currency trading have been humbled by their attempts.  Many a conference and seminar have been devoted to rebuilding the “architecture of international finance.”  The fact that there is no solution as yet points to the difficulty of getting unanimity on the issue.

             Chile once charged a premium for short-term capital (“hot” money) by requiring a portion to be deposited in a non-interest bearing account with the central bank.  That was then.  Now with the intense competition for foreign funds, Chile has done away with that novel scheme.

             The Yale Nobel economist James Tobin suggested a similar concept, the so-called Tobin Tax, to damper speculative activities of currency traders.  The fact that such schemes have not been adopted suggests that there are associated costs.  Ultimately it is borrowers, not lenders, who would end up bearing the added cost.  Thus instead of ranting and raving against currency traders, we would be wiser to accept them and to learn their ways in order to protect ourselves.  Countries should concentrate on producing goods and services efficiently, and let the currency traders assume the foreign exchange risks.

             While Mahathir may now righteously condemn currency traders, specifically George Soros, his own central bank was actively involved in the foreign exchange market.  Indeed Bank Negara’s excessive speculative activities in the early 1990s prompted the United States Federal Reserve Bank to issue a stern warning.  As it turned out, that was unnecessary as Bank Negara was later humbled by the loss of billions on a wrong gamble on the dollar.  The difference between Soros’s and Bank Negara’s loss is that with the latter, it is the Malaysian taxpayers who ultimately foot the bill while Soro’s loss was borne entirely by his affluent clients and investors.

             Thirty years ago there was no currency trade.  For one, there were only a few major currencies in the world so there was not much room to speculate.  Today, every tiny little independent country wants its own currency; thus opportunities for speculators are wide open.  The other reason is that currencies then were tied to the value of gold.  Money then held its value.  The US dollar was the last major currency to “de-link” itself from gold.  Without an underlying precious metal to support it, the value of paper money is based largely on the confidence people (the market) have on the underlying supporting economy.  Of course if the world were to have a single currency then those speculators would be out of business.

             In this Internet age, money is nothing more than blips of positive and negative charges (digitization) spinning around the globe at the speed of light seeking the highest returns commensurate with the risks.  Once we consider money as a commodity in addition to its traditional functions, we will then better understand and come to terms with the currency market, which is now so much an integral feature of globalization.

 Next:
The Forces Driving Globalization

                This entry was posted on Thursday, 21 October 2010, 1:01 pm and is filed under
Bakri Musa
,
globalisation
. You can follow any responses to this entry through
RSS 2.0
.


The 100-storey Najib Tower

This is extract of speech by Lim Kit Siang at  the first of two consecutive 2,000-plus-people Wisma Penang DAP fund-raising dinners held at PISA on Monday, 18th October 2010.

Other speakers on the first-night Wisma Penang DAP fund-raising dinner were  DAP Secretary-General and Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng, Deputy Chief Minister and MP for Batu Kawan, Professor P. Ramasamy, DAP Penang State Chairman, State Exco and MP for Tanjong Chow Kon Yeow and DAPSY chief  and MP for Rasah Anthony Loke.

Speakers for the second-night Wisama Penang DAP fund-raising dinner, also held at PISA on Tuesday 19th October 2010, apart from Lim Guan Eng, Chow Kong Yeow and Lim Kit Siang were DAP National Chairman and MP Bukit Gelugor Karpal Singh and DAP Wanita DAP chief and MP for Bukit Mertajam Chong Eng.

                This entry was posted on Thursday, 21 October 2010, 2:12 pm and is filed under
Najib Razak
. You can follow any responses to this entry through
RSS 2.0
.


Malays competitive and competent – need for New Pro-Poor Economic Policy/Reform

Malaysia’s Development Strategy Revisited (5)

by
Dr. Mohamed Ariff*

A New Pro-Poor Economic Policy and Reform

There is certainly a need for a clear focus on the needs of the poor and marginalized regardless of race, colour or religion. In other words, Malaysia needs a ‘new’ New Economic Policy that is explicitly pro-poor. The main beneficiary of such a policy would still be Malay households, as they account for roughly three-quarters of the bottom 40 per cent of households in terms of income distribution.

Without a doubt, Malaysia is one of the better-performing economies in the region, with fairly strong macroeconomic fundamentals. The medium and long-term prospects of the economy are bright. Its inherent strengths clearly outweigh its perceived weaknesses, which are by no means insurmountable. Malaysia has only itself to blame for being stuck in the middle-income category for so long, and high-income status is within striking distance if policy makers have the courage to recognize and rectify policy errors. But there should be no delusion that a high income is all it takes to become a developed country; Malaysia has a long way to go to climb up the human development ladder as well.

The Malays are Competitive and Competent

It would be incorrect to give the impression that there is very little political space for serious reform in Malaysia. Fortunately, times have changed. Malays are just as competitive and competent as anyone else, and it would be an insult to Malay intelligence and an affront to the Malay psyche to say otherwise. What is more, thanks to increasingly easier access to information through the internet, the mindset of Malay voters is changing, as is that of their compatriots in other ethnic groups. The constituency for reform is growing – a development that no political party can afford to ignore in a democracy.

Understandably, there has not been much academic discussion or intellectual discourse – let alone public debate – on the issues confronting Malaysia given the ‘sensitive’ nature of the topics. Books discussing such issues candidly and objectively are either dated or in short supply. The present volume, containing solid contributions by eminent writers on related themes, should help fill the vacuum with balanced arguments.

What distinguishes this book from other works on the Malaysian economy is the forthright manner in which the various issues are discussed. The insights and views of the writers cover a wide spectrum of issues, including political challenges, corporate ownership and control, governance, crisis management, macroeconomic and microeconomic policies, service sector reforms, technological upgrading, distributive justice and demographic change. Together, they represent a major contribution towards better understanding of an increasingly complex Malaysian economy.

*Dr. Mohamed Ariff is  Professor Emeritus, University of Malaya and  Distinguished Fellow, Malaysian Institute of Economic Research, Kuala Lumpur

Preface for the forthcoming book by Hal Hill, Tham Siew-Yean and Ragayah Haji Mat Zin (Editors),
GRADUATING FROM THE MIDDLE: MALAYSIAN DEVELOPMENT CHALLENGES
, Routledge, United Kingd

                This entry was posted on Friday, 22 October 2010, 11:53 am and is filed under
Economics
,
Finance
,
NEP
. You can follow any responses to this entry through
RSS 2.0
.


Middle income-trap – Malaysia has shot itself in the foot!

Malaysia’s Development Strategy Revisited (2)

by
Dr. Mohamed Ariff*

Input-Driven Growth unsustainable

It goes without saying that Malaysia must grow at a faster pace if it is serious about joining the club of developed countries by 2020 – hence the need to reinvent itself through reforms that can help restore the lost growth potential. Malaysia has learned the hard way that input-driven growth is unsustainable. It is instructive to note that the economy was growing at a rate of over 8.0 per cent in the early 1990s despite declining total factor productivity. To stay competitive, the growth strategy then was to keep wages low with the aid of a large migrant workforce. Obviously there was a dismal failure to understand that there were limits to economic expansion through input increases.

Migrant Workers depress wages

It was a major policy blunder to let migrant workers depress wages in the country, thereby throttling productivity improvements. Malaysia locked itself into low value-added manufacturing by allowing foreign workers to work in the sector for low wages, thus removing the incentive for manufacturers to automate.  The size of the problem is huge: the country reportedly has 1.9 million registered migrant workers and another 600,000 unregistered ones (probably an underestimate), accounting for nearly one-fifth of the working population. These workers are not confined to the so-called 3D jobs – the difficult, dirty and dangerous jobs that the locals shun – but compete with Malaysians in the wider labour market.

This is a race that Malaysian workers are bound to lose, as migrant workers are willing to accept lower wages and work longer hours, with no laws – let alone enforcement of laws – in place to protect their rights. Unless and until there is equal pay for equal work, the employers’ penchant for migrant workers will continue unabated.

This is not to deny that Malaysia needs the services of foreign workers, both skilled and unskilled. But care must be taken to ensure that they are treated with dignity and fairness, and not exploited by agents, employers and the authorities. Condoning the injustices inflicted on foreign workers only serves to increase the demand for foreign workers, to the detriment of locals in the labour market.

Productivity Gains Needed

Malaysia has inadvertently fallen into a middle-income trap by adopting an ill-conceived policy of preserving its fading competitiveness through suppressed wages. High wages need not mean high labour costs if the increased wages are backed by productivity gains. By the same token, low wages may not translate into low labour costs if productivity suffers. In the Malaysian context, the social cost of employing migrant labour far exceeds the private cost to employers. If the negative externalities associated with the excessive presence of migrant workers are taken into account, the short-sighted dependence on the migrant workforce turns out to be a costly affair. Obviously Malaysia has shot itself in the foot!

(to be contd)

                This entry was posted on Friday, 22 October 2010, 11:26 am and is filed under
Economics
,
Finance
,
Labour
. You can follow any responses to this entry through
RSS 2.0
.


NEM stillborn?

Malaysia’s Development Strategy Revisited (4)

by
Dr. Mohamed Ariff*

New Economic Model Up Against Formidable Challenges

The structural change agenda presents formidable challenges. The kinds of skills that the new paradigm demands cannot be provided by Malaysia’s archaic education system, which needs a complete overhaul. At the same time, the country is suffering from a serious brain drain caused by both push and pull factors. The importance of a truly independent judiciary cannot be exaggerated: anecdotal evidence suggests that Malaysia’s tarnished judiciary and gutter politics are among the push factors. Seen in these terms, the brain drain is largely a manifestation of frustration that has led some people to vote with their feet.

All this calls for bold structural changes, including institutional reforms encompassing everything from education to the judiciary, backed by governance reforms to strengthen fiscal discipline, transparency and accountability. Nothing short of a holistic approach will set the Malaysian economy far enough or fast enough on a true development path. The politics of policy making, however, may hobble the reform process.

Indeed, there are ominous signs that the New Economic Model may be stillborn. The powerful vested interests that have thrived on the rent seeking put in place by the New Economic Policy will resist reform tooth and nail. The all-inclusive ‘1Malaysia’ concept propagated by the Najib administration and the exclusive New Economic Policy caucus promoted by ultra-Malays simply cannot mix, each being antithetical to the other.

This paradox cannot be resolved by cosmetic changes to win over diehard supporters of the New Economic Policy or increase the appeal of the 1Malaysia concept. Inclusiveness, meritocracy and competitiveness must be the hallmark of the New Economic Model if it is to fly. If it fails to take off, the lofty 1Malaysia initiative will be reduced to an empty slogan.

The 10th Malaysia Plan relies on Private Investment

Unfortunately, the Tenth Malaysia Plan for 2011–2015 does not echo the inclusive sentiments espoused by the New Economic Model. The plan, which targets GDP growth of 6 per cent, looks somewhat similar to the preceding Ninth Malaysia Plan for 2006–2010 in terms of fund size (RM230 billion), sectoral allocation and strategy, albeit with different goals.

The assumption in the Tenth Malaysia Plan that private investment will grow at an annual rate of 12.8 per cent to energize GDP growth is questionable given that private investment slowed to 2 per cent under the Ninth Malaysia Plan. FDI trickled in at a snail speed of 1 per cent per annum during 2006–2009, a far cry from the 9 per cent growth seen before the Asian Financial Crisis.

According to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), there was a massive 81 per cent drop in FDI inflows to Malaysia in 2009 alone. Although it was a bad year for nearly every country in the region (the notable exception being Singapore), the other countries fared much better, with Thailand, Viet Nam and Indonesia registering significantly smaller drops of 30.4 per cent, 44.1 per cent and 44.7 per cent respectively. What is more, the Philippines attracted more FDI than Malaysia for the first time ever, while Vietnam overtook Malaysia as a favoured destination for FDI.

The dramatic drop in inflows in 2009 cannot be dismissed as an aberration given that a downward trend had been evident for several years. Nor can it be explained away by the observation that FDI was in short supply. The fact remains that Malaysia is losing out to its competitors as it seeks to attract increasingly scarce FDI funds. One cannot help but wonder if foreign investors are voting with their feet.

The Tenth Malaysia Plan expects the private sector to be in the driver’s seat, but this assertion alone is unlikely to entice the private sector, especially foreign investors, when there is no strategy to dislodge distortions in the market place related to the New Economic Policy. As Albert Einstein remarked, it is madness to keep doing the same thing over and over again while expecting a different result.

The New Economic Policy is an addiction for some, redundant for some others and unjust for the rest. Like the legendary Gordian knot, the New Economic Policy cannot be loosened but must be cut. Apparently, no one in the corridors of power in the country has the gumption to do away with it, because they all owe their jobs to the current set-up. All this, one must hasten to add, does not constitute an argument against affirmative action per se.

(to be contd)

                This entry was posted on Friday, 22 October 2010, 11:45 am and is filed under
Economics
,
Education
,
Finance
,
Good Governance
,
Judiciary
. You can follow any responses to this entry through
RSS 2.0
.


NEP “outlived its usefulness” – does not make sense to keep an obsolete policy ticking along on life support

Malaysia’s Development Strategy Revisited (3)

by
Dr. Mohamed Ariff*

The New Economic Policy: Pervasive Poverty in the Malay Community

Multi-racial Malaysia’s major structural problems are largely attributable to the New Economic Policy initiated in 1970 in the aftermath of the May 1969 racial riots. With its emphasis on ‘positive’ discrimination in favour of the then backward Bumiputeras (literally ‘sons of the soil’), the objectives of the policy were laudable, serious misgivings about its implementation notwithstanding. The New Economic Policy continued to exist after reincarnating itself in various forms beyond the original 1990 deadline. While it has undeniably helped narrow interethnic income differences, all is not well judging by the outcomes. While interethnic income disparity has narrowed considerably, intraethnic income disparity, especially within the Bumiputera community, has widened.

The growing income disparity within the Bumiputera community reflects the extremely uneven distribution of the benefits of the New Economic Policy. Arguably, all Bumiputeras have benefited in one way or another, but it is clear that the bulk, if not the lion’s share, of the benefits have accrued to the politically well-connected elites at the top. There is a perception that the New Economic Policy has been hijacked by cronyism and nepotism at the top, impairing its ability to improve the lives of the people at the bottom. How else can one explain the existence of pervasive poverty in the Malay community after four decades of affirmative action? Although Malaysia has made considerable progress in alleviating poverty, poverty among the Malays – which is not confined to rural areas – remains glaringly conspicuous, with numerous Malay households struggling below the poverty line. Malay households still account for nearly 75 per cent of the bottom 40 per cent earning RM2,000 or less per month.

To be sure, poverty is not confined to the Malay community, and there are many poor Indians, Chinese and others. But there is absolutely no reason why anyone should remain poor in a land of plenty. With poverty – in both relative and absolute terms – still prevalent among the masses, it is obvious that the New Economic Policy has outlived its usefulness. There is really nothing ‘new’ any more about the New Economic Policy. It does not make sense to keep an obsolete policy ticking along on life support.

As mentioned, the New Economic Policy has continually reincarnated itself beyond the 1990 deadline, in the National Development Policy, the National Vision Policy and, most recently,  the New Economic Model. In both letter and spirit, it is the centrepiece of the much hyped New Economic Model, the only ostensible difference being a better focus and greater transparency this time round. Despite this, the New Economic Model has been slammed vehemently by the Malay Consultative Council – comprising 76 Malay non-government organizations – for not being unequivocally pro-Bumiputera.

This simply shows the woeful ignorance of the new realities that have rendered such a policy totally untenable and unsustainable, with public debt extrapolated to exceed 100 per cent of GDP in 2019. There is a perception that much of the corruption, rent seeking and cost overruns that place pressure on the country’s coffers are associated directly or indirectly with the manner in which the New Economic Policy has been implemented.

The proponents of the New Economic Policy claim that it was not a constraint on growth, citing the fact that the Malaysian economy was able to grow at near double-digit rates for many years. Some go so far as to credit the New Economic Policy with this impressive growth record. However, one wonders whether the economy was growing because of the New Economic Policy or in spite of it, and whether economic growth would have been even more impressive in the absence of such constraints. The strategy was only going to work if there was robust economic growth in the first place. To avoid the disruption caused by redistribution, it asserted that no one should get a smaller piece of the pie than previously – which was possible only if the pie continued to get bigger. It is no wonder, therefore, that the New Economic Policy was downplayed during economic downturns.

Empirical observation suggests that the government was not oblivious to the constraints imposed by the New Economic Policy, judging by the attempts over the years to liberalize the rules and guidelines governing domestic and foreign investment. The fact that these rules and regulations were slowly chipped away, in the guise of reform, is a manifestation of the recognition that the New Economic Policy was an obstacle to increased investment and faster growth.

Seen in these terms, Malaysia has unwittingly forgone faster growth and denied itself a quantum leap to a higher income trajectory. It is instructive to note in this regard that Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan – which were roughly on a par with Malaysia in the early 1970s – have overtaken Malaysia to gain high-income status thanks to their smarter growth strategies.

In the wake of the titanic shifts that have been taking place in the world economy, Malaysia needs to embrace major structural transformation. It needs to discover new sources of growth, enhance its competitiveness in the global arena, strengthen its regional linkages, energize its domestic sector, move up the value chain in manufacturing, make its services sector the main engine of growth and so forth.

(to be contd)

                This entry was posted on Friday, 22 October 2010, 11:37 am and is filed under
Corruption
,
Economics
,
Finance
,
NEP
. You can follow any responses to this entry through
RSS 2.0
.


PAS picks Dr Zulkefli for Galas

PAS picks Dr Zulkefli for Galas

The Malaysian Insider

October 22, 2010

GUA MUSANG, Oct 22 — PAS picked Gua Musang acting chief Dr Zulkefli Mohamad as Pakatan Rakyat candidate for the November 4 Galas vote.

Dr Zulkefli was the Gua Musang parliamentary seat candidate in Election 2008, losing to Tengku Razaleigh, who has been appointed as the election director for this highly anticipated by-election, the 13th since the general election.

The announcement was made by Kelantan mentri besar Datuk Nik Aziz Nik Mat last night. Opposition Leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim was also present.

Nomination is slated for October 26. Both nomination and voting days are the same as for the Batu Sapi by-election in Sabah.

The seat became vacant following the unfortunate death of PAS’s Che Hashim Sulaima from cancer on September 27.

In Election 2008, Che Hashim beat BN’s Mohd Saufi Deraman by a margin of 646.

Medical doctor is PAS’ choice for Galas

Malaysiakini

Oct 22, 10

Medical doctor Dr Zulkefli Muhammad, who is also Gua Musang PAS division deputy chief, has been named as the PAS candidate for the upcoming Galas by-election.

Zulkefli was the PAS candidate who ran and lost against Umno veteran Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah for the Gua Musang parliamentary seat in the 2008 general elections.

The 44-year old Dr Zulkefli ia the seventh son of 10 siblings. Graduating from Universiti Malaya (UM) in 1992, he holds a degree in medicine and surgery.

He is said to be well known to locals for his services as a doctor, he is reportedly well regarded in party circles and is currently Gua Musang PAS acting-chief.

PAS spiritual advisor Nik Aziz Nik Mat made the announcement at the Dataran Ilmu at close to midnight during a meet-the-people session held next to the Faiz Mosque in Gua Musang town.

Parliamentary opposition leader and de facto PKR leader Anwar Ibrahim and Nik Aziz spoke to the crowd prior to the announcement.

Although DAP supremo Lim Kit Siang was also supposed to join them, he was taken ill and did not attend. Lim was represented by Perak DAP chief Ngeh Khoo Ham

BN to announce candidate on Sunday

The state assembly seat fell vacant after PAS state assemblyperson Che Hashim Sulaima, who had been battling colon cancer, passed away late last month after a relapse.

Hashim won the Galas seat with a majority of 646 votes in the last general election, against incumbent Saufi Deraman of BN.

The state constituency has 10,330 voters consisting of 65.4 percent Malays, 22.3 percent Chinese and 1.8 percent Indians. Most of the remaining 10.5 percent are Orang Asli, who number around 2,000 in Galas.

Galas, one of three state seats under the Gua Musang parliamentary constituency – long held by Razaleigh – and is considered a BN stronghold.

It fell to PAS in the 2008 general elections, reportedly due to a swing in non-Malay votes.

Meanwhile, BN will be announcing its candidate for both the Galas and Batu Sapi by-elections on Sunday.

Razaleigh has agreed to spearhead the BN campaign in Galas, but has declined to be the candidate.

                This entry was posted on Friday, 22 October 2010, 9:13 am and is filed under
Elections
,
Pakatan Rakyat
,
PAS
. You can follow any responses to this entry through
RSS 2.0
.


Sanitary Pads and their relevance to intelligence

By
Dina Zaman

I like giving our politicians a break. Doesn’t matter which side they swing. Like many Malaysians, I too laugh at some of the pearls that dance out of their mouths. When this happens, it makes for a sunnier day, and then we all get on with our lives.

However, today’s gem which came out from Johor delegate Azura Mohd Afandi,  who wanted the Information Ministry to curb television shows and commercials that could lead people astray from the right religious paths, really made me think that time around, (1) nothing can ever beat this statement and (2) that’s it. The people who are involved in politics have four screws loose.

“For example, commercials on sanitary pads are openly shown on TV and this could influence the young to get involved in social ills,” said Johor Bahru Puteri Umno member, urging the ministry to increase shows that teach good values and religious practices.

As a still menstruating woman, I have yet to witness how sanitary pads and their ads could lead one to sin. I have always thought that sanitary pads are a bane to women and frighten the hell out of men, especially bloody and wet ones.

My first encounter with a sanitary pad advertisement came at the courtesy of a 1970s Female magazine, which touted Sanita Napkins as the purveyor of Malaysian Women’s Freedom. My sister, cousins and I had no clue what it was, and when we discovered the confounded thing in our mothers’ cupboards, we giggled and played with it. Our mothers’ bras were also a source of mirth, as we modelled in them while our mums went to work.

My second encounter was when I attended sekolah asrama, and from then on, I had a morbid love-hate relationship with sanitary pads. I had reached puberty far away from my mother’s care, and my school seniors all advised me (and my other school friends) that we had to WASH our pads until they were clean. If we didn’t the hantu pelesit would come at night and suck out the blood from the used pads, and we would all die.

Looking back, I think this could be one of the causes of my abysmal academic record when I was a teenager. All that washing addled my brains. When gel-based sanitary pads arrived, I was in heaven. I didn’t have to deal with pad laundry ever again.

Now, when I look at a sanitary pad ad, or a packet in the pharmacy, I am not compelled to sin. Rather, I think of the following: (1) length of pad because a woman does not want embarrassing stains and (2) make of pad. Scritchy scratchy ones might give a woman diaper rash.

And I can vouch that men, after watching such an ad, will not lead them to illicit behavior. In fact, they are scared of them.  I have asked a boyfriend once to buy me a pack, and twice he came back with nothing because (a) he got confused with winged pads and non-winged pads (b) he didn’t want to look gay buying one (c) it was too bloody confusing. Light days? Heavy days? Night flow? What the hell?

The third time I asked him to help get one, he came back with maternity pads from the nearby tabib China. I gave up after that.

There are some things you cannot train a man to do.

From the Budget to this. Everyone had a field day on Twitter and Facebook. My friends were a riot as usual, and it was from one that I learned that tobacco absorbed blood really well, and it had natural antiseptic properties.

What kind of cigarettes would do the trick, I asked.

The Divine Ms. W replied, “Those that comes in packs, pure tobacco, not the Dunhills. Those are filled with paper.”

To which a journalist friend quipped, “New tagline for tobacco industry: Why light up when you can soak up?”

The conversation on Facebook went south after that.

Please, I beg you, dear politician of any stripe, please think before you say anything.

Here’s a video that I hope will kick off your weekend.

                This entry was posted on Friday, 22 October 2010, 10:54 am and is filed under
UMNO
. You can follow any responses to this entry through
RSS 2.0
.


Solution to the problems of economic openness is not less openness but more openness

Malaysia’s Development Strategy Revisited (1)

by
Dr. Mohamed  Ariff*

Malaysia has turned 180 degrees since Independence in 1957, transforming itself into a thriving modern economy and leapfrogging from a low-income to a middle-income trajectory. The country owes its prosperity to its economic openness, with trade as the lifeblood and foreign direct investment (FDI) as the backbone of the economy.

Economic Openness  and Vulnerability to External Shocks

The price Malaysia has had to pay for this success is greater vulnerability to external shocks, but it has learned to cope with cyclical ups and downs with remarkable dexterity. This does not mean, however, that all of the crises in the Malaysian economy were caused entirely by external forces, as if domestic policy missteps had nothing to do with them. The Malaysian experience shows that crises tend to be blessings in disguise, as they force the authorities to step back, take a hard look at their policies, learn lessons and move on.

The economy has recently arrived at yet another crossroads, this time in the aftermath of the global financial crisis of 2008–09. Like many other countries, Malaysia is in search of a new economic model with which to reposition itself.

The prospective ‘new economic model’ may be viewed from two different angles: as a short-term rebalancing exercise after the crisis, and as a long-term agenda for structural change. There has been much talk of the need to reorient the Malaysian economy towards the domestic market so as to render it more resilient. But although this is intuitively appealing, the reality suggests it would not work in practice. Malaysia’s domestic market is still too small to be a meaningful substitute for the huge external market.

This observation does not ignore the role the domestic market can play when external demand caves in, but it does help to underscore the point that there is only so much the domestic market can do when exports slump, even in large economies, not to mention small ones like Malaysia.

It is important to understand that the solution to the problems of economic openness is not less openness but more openness. There is nothing wrong with Malaysia being so trade dependent; it cannot afford to be otherwise. The question, rather, is whether the Malaysian economy is too trade dependent for its own good. Rhetoric aside, the optimum trade level relative to a country’s GDP can only be determined by market forces, not by administrative fiat. For market forces to work effectively, there is a need first to eliminate all distortions in the market place.

Distorted Factor Market

In Malaysia, the factor market is much more distorted than the market for goods and services, with a bias in favour of the traded versus non-traded sector or the external versus domestic sector. The proposal to reorient the economy towards domestic demand away from exports would warrant policies to reverse the bias in favour of the non-traded or domestic sector, but this would be a mistake in the opposite direction. What is needed is policy neutrality without any bias, so that resources flow more freely in response to market signals. This would ensure greater efficiency in resource allocation.

No doubt a robust and vibrant domestic sector would help offset the impact of external shocks on the economy. Domestic demand would have played a far more important role in the country’s economic growth and development had income distribution been less uneven and if social safety nets had been in place. It is evident that income inequality has widened in recent times, with the Gini coefficient rising for all ethnic groups in Malaysia.

A more equitable income distribution would have led to increased private consumption and greater economic resilience. After all, Malaysians tend to save more and spend less than their counterparts in the developed world, partly because there are no safety nets for them to fall back on when the chips are down.

This line of reasoning prompts policy makers to focus on social security and income redistribution so that people will save less and spend more, and militates against attempts to divert demand towards domestic consumption through trade distortions.

The rest of the world has also changed dramatically, with more and more economies opening up and joining the bandwagon of export-led growth. In the process, Malaysia has lost its comparative and competitive advantage in several products to newcomers. As a result, its potential growth rate has shrunk from 7.5 per cent in the late 1980s to 5.5 per cent now, putting at risk the goal of making Malaysia a developed country by 2020 with a per capita income of $20,000 in real terms. Estimates show that, to reach a per capita income of $17,000 in 2020, the Malaysian economy would have to grow at an average rate of 7.0 per cent per annum, which sounds like a tall order. At the slower pace of 5.5 per cent per annum – the current potential rate – per capita income would be just $15,000 in 2020.

(to be continued)

                This entry was posted on Friday, 22 October 2010, 11:08 am and is filed under
Economics
,
Finance
. You can follow any responses to this entry through
RSS 2.0
.


“No Mega Tower” fb campaign reached 113,205 at 8.30 am – 625 in support

(Opposition to the RM50 billion 100-storey Najib Tower in the
“No Mega Tower”
 facebook campaign reached 113,205 people at 8.30 am this morning after breaching the 100,000 mark at 9.20pm last night.

In contrast, the facebook campaign in support of the Najib Tower,
“Kami Sokong Menara Warisan”
, has collected a miserable

625 supporters.)

Anti-Warisan Merdeka Facebook campaign hits 100,000 mark

By
Shazwan Mustafa Kamal

The Malaysian Insider

KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 22 — As at 9.20pm tonight, more than 100,000 in a week have signed on to a Facebook campaign opposing the Najib administration’s Warisan Merdeka skyscraper.

The proposed 100-storey building in the city, has stirred up spontaneous grassroots opposition, moving the issue to the front and centre of current Malaysian politics.

More so impressive is the pace of recruitment — that only seven days ago Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak announced the plan, during his budget speech. It is clear the groundswell opposing it is considerable and now has shaped into a major political minefield for the Barisan Nasional(BN) government.

It began with the Facebook page “1M Malaysians Reject 100-storey Mega Tower” being created anonymously soon after the announcement.

Those who have backed the campaign are ordinary Malaysians who use the popular social networking site.

“Malaysians saying no to the RM5-Billion 100-storey Mega Tower proposed by PM Najib in the 2011 budget. Malaysia needs better education, better health care, better public transportation, safer neighbourhood, cleaner water, but not taller building(s). We don’t need another white elephant! Are you ready for action?

“Announcement to be made when we reach 100,000,” said the administrator of the Facebook page earlier today.

Last Friday, Najib announced Permodalan Nasional Berhad’s (PNB) initiative to complete the RM5 billion construct by 2015.

 “A few months ago,some Minister said that the country will be going bankrupt if subsidies are not withdrawn…. so this is why the subsidies were withdrawn… to build another “Mega White Elephant “ project.

“While the people suffer, our leaders are finding more ways to rob the nations depleting wealth !!At this rate in 20…20 Malaysia will become a fully developed Zimbabwe or worse!!” said one of the comments on the page by a Natalie Ho.

Another fan, Kirksman Teo claimed that the government’s push for the building indicated that they had learnt the lesson from their losses in the last general elections.

“A leader once said, the people should not fear the government, the government should. Rightly so.

“Now… Why the devil does the government refuse to listen to the people once again?… Knowing very well that the last time they lost, it was because they didn’t listen,” said Kirksman.

Expectedly, opposition politicians like DAP’s Lim Kit Siang have entered the fray, providing live updates of the growing number of Facebook fans every hour.

The anti-Warisan Merdeka Facebook page has 102,739 fans as at 10.21pm tonight.

In contrast, a pro-Warisan Merdeka fanpage on Facebook has only 244 members as at the same time.

The Najib administration could now be faced with a major hurdle in winning over support for what was supposed to be a symbol and pride for all Malaysians.

                This entry was posted on Saturday, 23 October 2010, 8:50 am and is filed under
IT
,
Najib Razak
. You can follow any responses to this entry through
RSS 2.0
.


Consensus on ‘social contract’ imperative

By
Clive Kessler | Oct 22, 10 8:52am
 | Malaysiakini

The nature of the current disagreement about “the social contract” should be clearly identified.

Nobody is seriously suggesting that “the social contract” be repudiated, set aside, rejected. Nobody is arguing that it is fictive, a pure fantasy, an illusion. On all sides, everyone in their own way is arguing that it should be honoured, respected and upheld.

People just need to be clear, and find a way to agree, what its terms were, what “upholding the social contract” means and entails.

People are broadly agreed that in the years between 1955 and 1957 certain basic inter-ethnic or inter-communal understandings were reached. Through them a national “accord” was solemnly affirmed and politically “enshrined” that made the nation possible.

Known informally in earlier times as “the Merdeka agreements” or “Merdeka understandings”, these were subsequently, in the 1980s, relabelled, or as people now say “rebranded” with a new identity as “the social contract”.

Embodied within the constitution, these agreements – this national “accord” or inter-communal “compact” – became the foundation of Malayan, and later Malaysian, nationhood.

Within the current debates, people on both sides of this question broadly agree on this.

There is basic disagreement, however, about what those agreements were, what they provided, what their terms precisely specified.

In retrospect, different parties have construed them differently and have, at times, enlarged or “inflated” the import of those parts of the agreements, or their preferred notions of them, that they found congenial, that seemed to their sectional political liking.

There is now an urgent need for people on both, indeed all, sides of this question – and all Malaysians generally – to understand what exactly those agreements now designated as “the social contract” in fact were.

Malaysians need to reach a historically well-founded consensus concerning “the social contract”, what its terms were at the nation’s formative moment and in its founding experience, and what it means today and for the future. The coherence, strength and political sustainability of the nation require no less.

‘Ketuanan Melayu’ not part of the deal

It needs to be widely understood that, whatever they provided and mandated, “Ketuanan Melayu” was not part of what those agreements enshrined.

Any suggestion that Malay political domination in perpetuity, continuing Malay “ethnocratic” ascendancy over other Malayans (and now Malaysians), was any part of those foundational agreements now designated as “the social contract” is simply wrong.

Those who argue to the contrary that Ketuanan Melayu is a constitutionally guaranteed “foundational” component of Malaysia’s national sovereignty and international public identity are disingenuous, mischievous, or simply ill-informed.

The attempt to “read back” subsequent notions of Ketuanan Melayu into ideas of “the social contract” and in that way to embed them within newly fashioned but quite dubious views of the constitution is simply an exercise in anachronistic revisionism.

It is the duty of serious historians and legal scholars to say so.

CLIVE S KESSLER is emeritus professor of sociology and anthropology at the School of Social Science and International Studies at the University of New South Wales in Australia.

                This entry was posted on Saturday, 23 October 2010, 12:49 pm and is filed under
Constitution
. You can follow any responses to this entry through
RSS 2.0
.


Two-generation home loans may bankrupt the next generation

Philip Ho

Klik4Malaysia

23 October 2010

Petaling Jaya, Oct 23 – Housing and Local Government Minister Datuk Chor Chee Heung has urged house buyers to sign up two-generation housing loans so that more Malaysians can afford to own houses.

“The most important thing is for the individual to own a house for his family to live in. If loan repayment is extended to the second generation, that means the family will remain intact,” said Chor yesterday after launching the Malaysia Building Society Bhd’s Ultimate Mortgage programme on Friday (Oct 22).

Chor said that the newly announced 2011 Budget also encouraged the two-generation loan term while denying that the move would increase the financial burden of the next generation.

“I don’t think it is a burden for the next generation because the repayment will be spread over a long period and the younger generation are financially strong. They can even buy a second house,” he added.

Klik4Malaysia (K4M) contacted Selangor state government’s chief executive of economic advisory Rafizi Ramli for comments from an accountant’s perspective, regarding the implications on the younger generation’s financial burden.

Rafizi expressed disappointment that the federal government was not addressing the country’s alarmingly high household-debt to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) ratio of 78% (RM 561.5 billion).

“The household-debt is primarily made up of car loans and housing loans and by stretching the loan period to two generations, you are forcing the next generation to bear a heavy financial burden as soon as they start work,” he said.

Rafizi then explained that with the current housing loan period of 30 years, a house owner would be paying accumulated interests that would be almost similar to the principal sum.

“If the loan is stretched to two generations, they (family) will be paying two to three times the amount of a house bought 60 to 70 years ago. Why is the housing ministry endorsing this proposal of prolonged debt on top of already high household-debt? he asked.

Rafizi said it was the first time he had heard of a government endorsing a two-generation loan, adding that it has never happened in the USA, Europe or even in the South East Asian region.

He also expressed concern that the younger generation would be bearing a financial burden that would be several times heavier than their parents because principle value of the currency may not be the same in 10 years.

“For example the value of RM100 may not be the same in 10 years due to inflation and also currency depreciation.

“Because of inflation and depreciation of money, over a time period, the next generation will already face lower purchasing power and by dumping such a huge financial burden on them, you are practically forcing them to live in debt,” Rafizi said.

 He urged the ministry and also the federal government to control property speculation so that houses can be more affordable rather than allow developers and real estate agents reap over-inflated profits at the expense of the people.

When asked if Malaysia could face another property bubble like USA, he said, “The risk of a property bubble is not that high. Currently, our banking industry’s re-mortgage facilities are still tightly regulated as compared to America.

“I am more worried about the risks of individual bankruptcy because there will come a time when the people can no longer afford to pay their mortgages because they are tied down with so much debt.”

                This entry was posted on Saturday, 23 October 2010, 2:36 pm and is filed under
Finance
,
Housing
. You can follow any responses to this entry through
RSS 2.0
.


Umno and PM declaring war against the rakyat?

Richard Loh

Malaysia Chronicle

October 23, 2010

Is our country at war? Is our country being attacked by outsiders? It looks that way when we heard the Prime Minister declaring “Even if our bodies are crushed and our lives lost, brothers and sisters, whatever happens, we must defend Putrajaya.” I would be the first to stand by the PM and sacrifice my life to defend Putrajaya and the country if we are at war with outsiders. When an enemy attacked a country they will go for the capital city, trying to capture it, and if they succeed, the country will be theirs and they win the war.

This morning when I woke up, I hear no gun fire nor any bombing, just the normal sound of vehicles passing by and a beautiful sunny day.

So, what is the PM declaration all about? After reading it more closely I realized that it was umno and it’s president that is declaring war against the rakyat. They have taken control of Putrajaya and that Putrajaya belongs to umno, no one else has the right to it and they will protect it at all cost.

Let me, the rakyat of Malaysia, tell Umno and its president these actual facts.

Putrajaya does not belong to any individual or party, it belongs to all Malaysians.

The rakyat will decide who to run Putrajaya and incidentally, umno was chosen to helm Putrajaya for 54 years. This does not mean that umno now owns Putrajaya and it can declare to defend it at all cost. There is nothing for you to defend if the rakyat decided to throw you out.

By declaring war against the rakyat, which they put you there in the first place, indicates that you are now no longer interested to serve the rakyat and country, but to preserve your control by any means which is legally wrong. It is even more wrong to use threat and force by indicating that you are willing to shed blood to remain in power.

Whether you remain in power and control over Putrajaya is not yours to decide nor defend by foul means.

Pakatan Rakyat or any party that wins the majority seats as decided by the rakyat will control Putrajaya and rule the country whether you like it or not.

The rakyat are now fully aware of the true color and intention of the PM after hearing his statement to defend Putrajaya at all cost. The PM is more concern about himself and umno rather than to serve the rakyat and country. All his talks and slogan of “1Malaysia, People First Performance Now” are just empty promises to con the rakyat into voting for him.

The rakyat will capture back Putrajaya and throw Umno out and our March to Putrajaya will not be through crushing of bodies or loss of lives but by peaceful mean and that is using our vote.

My fellow Malaysians, you had given your mandate to umno for 54 years and now they are turning into a monster that cares not about you or the country. They are willing to crushed bodies and lost lives to protect their existence.

We must tame this monster not by brute force but by using our vote.

To Umno and the PM, we, the rakyat, no longer fear your threat of another May 13 nor your threat of crushed bodies and lost lives. We, the rakyat, hold the power to decide who control Putrajaya.

Malaysians, we must not allow fear to stop us from marching to Putrajaya. We are now a step closer to Putrajaya when our enemy are showing signs of defeat by declaring war against the rakyat.

Change we must and this is not an option.

                This entry was posted on Saturday, 23 October 2010, 10:11 am and is filed under
Elections
,
Najib Razak
,
UMNO
. You can follow any responses to this entry through
RSS 2.0
.


We all grieve for a Malaysia that could be!

by
Romerz

October 22, 2010

In his presidential address to the 61st UMNO general assembly, a lot of things said by PM Najib could be argued against simply on the basis of logic, history, proper understanding of Malaysia’s federal constitution, democracy and a host of other things. But I will not argue against Najib’s fallacious arguments because I’m tired of warped views and I believe my readers are of a higher mentality than those he was addressing.

Instead I will focus on only one thing he mentioned in the speech. Najib said “the Malays were hurt when the social contract agreed upon by the forefathers of various races who had agreed to make sacrifices to gain the independence, was now being questioned.”

In the first place I know of no such social contract as after 53 years of independence, no one can show me a written copy of this contract nor explain to me what was it that was agreed upon specifically by our forefathers. Even assuming that such an agreement exists (possibly and perhaps reached privately by the leaders of UMNO, MCA and MIC then, which may explain why we know so little of this often touted social contract), hadn’t this preceding social contract been documented and articulated in the Constitution of Malaya 1957?

In essence, isn’t Najib implying that the non-Malay citizens of Malaysia reneged on an agreement made by our forefathers by questioning certain provisions of the federal constitution? But what is it that we are questioning of the constitution? From the context of Najib’s speech, it would seem to refer to article 153 of the constitution. But he seems to forget that article 153 only allowed four areas of discriminatory practices when the rest of the constitution is about equality and freedom for all Malaysians of whatever ethnicity and religious inclinations.

Frankly, I do not think any rational, fair thinking and peace loving non-Malay Malaysians would dispute the original intent of the constitution. It is by this paramount piece of document (nor the inclusion of article 153 into the constitution), which we cling on to, that we hope can safeguard our existence.

All we question is how far article 153 had been taken away from its original intent by UMNO for political self-interests. Are these questions an attack on the Malay race which warrants threats of reprisal? How can Najib say that non-Malays intentionally hurt the Malays simply by asking for the “social contract” vis-a-vis the federal constitution be restored to its original intent?

If the Malays had been hurt, what about the non-Malays being cheated by a changing constitution, eroding at our constitutionally guaranteed rights, to suit those who had control over it for 50 years? If there existed a social contract (which required sacrifices as Najib put it), why is UMNO now reneging on an agreement made by his father and forefathers as well (by using the constitution above what it was originally intended)?

After the riots of 1969, the NEP was formulated by Najib’s own father. When Tun Razak first put forward the the intent and concept of NEP to parliament, he had to convince MCA and MIC and even the opposition to go along with affirmative action with the objective of bringing all Malaysians on par economically which hopefully will prevent another 1969 from happening again. This I do not dispute that it was needed then and even now. Today a large segment of Malaysian society still needs affirmative action but wouldn’t it be better if it was based on needs?

Documented history (parliament hansard) tells us compromises were made, promises declared and at the end of the day, most Malaysians of whatever ethnicity then allowed it to happen through an act of parliament.

But are these promises being kept today? What was supposed to help poor Malaysians then had now become a tool to garner support for UMNO by playing one race against another so is it any wonder that we question how article 153 had been used by our ruling elites?

So who is grieved more?

The answer is Malaysia the country is grieved the most! Not only the Malays or non-Malays but ALL citizens of a greater Malaysia are grieved! When our beloved country could have stood tall amongst the greater nations of the world but instead wallow amongst the wannabes simply because UMNO/BN do not know how to leave racial and parochial politics behind.

And for that, ordinary Malaysians suffer with threats of our well-being politically, economically and safety! Isn’t about time after 53 years on nationhood that we stop comparing race sacrifices, who is the bigger enemy of race and who is the greater defender of our nation?

Why can’t we simply move on and create a better country for all 27 million of humanity? Is it that difficult when all the majority of ordinary Malaysians want is to live in peace and help each other prosper so that our country can once again stand tall?

Shouldn’t we be Malaysians first (which can be proven with our legal citizenry documents), race second (which is subject to the interpretation of race when we cannot ascertain fully our bloodlines except that our blood is red), and religious inclinations third (when faith is a personal matter of the heart which keeps its secrets to itself)?

I will end by going to bed grieving for us all when we allow UMNO/BN to continue dictating the future of this country! But I will not simply go away grieving and instead do my little part for a better Malaysia. Are you one of the 3 million Malaysians who are entitled to vote but are not yet registered to do so? If you grieve as much as I do about the current state of affairs, then register to vote and get as many other non-voters to do likewise.

Let us give our beloved country some chance to survive and possibly prosper come the next GE!

                This entry was posted on Saturday, 23 October 2010, 9:47 am and is filed under
1Malaysia
,
Constitution
,
Najib Razak
,
nation building
. You can follow any responses to this entry through
RSS 2.0
.


PM Najib threatening speech at UMNO Assembly, a sign of desperation

By
 Dr Chen Man Hin

Najib’s opening speech at the UMNO Assembly has shocked bloggers, internet surfers and the public.

The main media has censored Najib’s  opening speech before the UMNO Assembly, filled with  threats of crushed bodies, lost lives  and ethnic cleansing to avoid causing  panic and loss of support among the people and investors.

The Altantuya murder and the trumped up sodomy charge against Anwar and now a speech laced with threats of ethnic cleansing reveal the dark side of Najib.

How do you reconcile this  with the sweet talk of 1 Malaysia and Malaysia is for all races?

Now it is obvious that we are dealing with s aplit personality prime minister, who is flip flopping most of the time.

The threats uttered before UMNO leaders is a serious breach of democratic protocol and should be brought up in Parliament.

The UN should be informed and let them see the contrast between his speech before the  UMNO assembly, and the speech  Najib made before  the UN Assembly.

It could be that Najib is influenced by hard core UMNO leaders who feel they are losing control, and the only way for Umno to survive is to revert back  to their trusted ideology of Ketuanan Melayu (Malay supremacy), Malay privileges (rights) and 30% bumi quota.

                This entry was posted on Sunday, 24 October 2010, 5:09 pm and is filed under
Articles
. You can follow any responses to this entry through
RSS 2.0
.


Umno must avoid PAS’s old blinkered views, says Asri

By

G. Manimaran

(Bahasa Malaysia Editor)

The Malaysian Insider

October 24, 2010

KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 24 — Umno must be practical in its approach and must shed its narrow views which were no longer relevant now, Islamic scholar Dr Mohd Asri Zainul Abidin said.

The former Perlis Mufti described Umno’s tackling of issues now was similar to PAS’s approach in the 1980s, noting that the Islamist party has progressed by presenting itself as a moderate alternative.

In the past two years, PAS has been seen as becoming more progressive and this was highlighted by Umno delegates during the party’s recently concluded annual general assembly, which also tabled a motion on religion and education.

Asri stressed that Umno and other political parties must consider the country’s multi-racial composition when expressing their views on religion or risk Islam becoming politicised.

 “In my opinion, it is sad to see that Umno has recently played up issues that made it look like PAS in the 1980s. When PAS is beginning to assert itself as a moderate party, Umno instead are trying to play up issues that are unnecessary.

“Like issues where Muslims cannot enter mosques, cannot pray for non-Muslims, the issue of gambling money, [these] have made Umno seem to have views which are narrow and not relevant to a government [of a country] with different races and religions,” he wrote in his blog.

Asri added that pro-Umno media have also highlighted extreme religious opinions by certain Islamic scholars, which he described as unfavourable to Barisan Nasional.

“Finally Islam has become the victim, Umno must be regarded as dangerous.

“Political ideas with knowledge should be promoted. Political yes-men without thinking must be avoided. This happened when Islam Hadari was propagated and others just nodded without giving critical view. The slogan then finally buried Umno itself,” he said, referring to the concept introduced by former prime minister Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi.

Asri was grateful, however, that he was invited to attend Umno’s assembly, but insisted that he will not join any political parties in the near future.

“Our politics should go further than just filing in forms. Politics should not be about affiliations but be based on thoughts and ideas. Politics are measured by views and ideas and this is what I have been trying to do,” he said.

But he noted that there was still space to have difference of opinions in Umno compared to other political parties and was impressed with Youth chief Khairy Jamaluddin’s call for open politics in a new political era.

 “I am sorry but the [the party’s] other wings are still following to the beats of yesterday and have yet to mirror a new political era,” Asri said.

The Islamic cleric added that the public today wanted the political parties to compete in healthy manner.

“They (political parties) should be a market of ideas that benefit the country. They should be an open market which provides fresh and quality products, and anyone who manages to provide with the best products will [get] the people’s vote,” he said.

According to Asri, it was not a party’s role to merely expose the weaknesses of its opposition when they themselves do not provide any new ideas.

“Politics is not simply talking about others but forgetting yourself and not be able to bring us anywhere.

“The greatness of a political speech is not in cursing your opponents but it is great when you are able to give views and ideas that can develop the country,” he said.

Asri said narrow political interpretations of Islam must be rejected because political Islam offered great breadth and was widely-based on public interest.

“Political Islam is very broad, flexible and practical but it is always underpinned by the revelations. Not all that is said by Islamic teachers can be accepted. Politics has its unique discipline that requires Islamic knowledge for the benefit of the people and country.

“Just learning a few things in religion does not guarantee a deep understanding of politics in Islam,” he added.

                This entry was posted on Sunday, 24 October 2010, 7:35 pm and is filed under
Articles
. You can follow any responses to this entry through
RSS 2.0
.


Building projects unsustainable in long run, say analysts

By
Boo Su-Lyn

The Malaysian Insider

October 25, 2010

KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 25 — Putrajaya’s focus on mega construction projects instead of key reforms in its economic plans — symbolised by the 100-storey Warisan Merdeka tower — will hamper the country’s goal of becoming a high-income nation, analysts have said.

They have stressed that economic and institutional reforms to increase market efficiency and human capital development were the crucial elements to lift Malaysia out of its middle-income trap.

“It is not sustainable as we will have first-class infrastructure and facility and third-world work ethics and mentality,” RAM Holdings group chief economist Dr Yeah Kim Leng told The Malaysian Insider.

“The soft part of the development, which is the human capital, will have to take centre stage for the high-income transformation drive to be successful,” he added.

Yeah noted that Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s reform commitments in his New Economic Model (NEM) have been eclipsed by the mega construction projects announced in Budget 2011 and the Economic Transformation Programme (ETP).

The RM5 billion Warisan Merdeka project has been derided by the opposition and ordinary Malaysians online as a wasteful initiative, with an anti-Warisan Merdeka page on Facebook called “1M Malaysians Reject 100-storey Mega Tower” garnering 156,612  fans as at 7am today since the proposal was mooted on October 15.

Budget 2011 that features other projects such as the RM43 billion new KL MRT project and the RM26 billion KL International Financial District has also been denounced by Pakatan Rakyat (PR) as an election budget honed to win votes over resolving fundamental economic issues. Analysts have also criticised it for neglecting key reforms and ignoring plunging foreign direct investment (FDI).

Various projects in the ETP include the “River of Life” Klang River beautification project in the Greater KL region, future 1 Malaysia malls in China and Vietnam, as well as a huge oil storage facility next to Singapore to form a regional oil products trading hub.

“They have overshadowed the reform agenda, which is the more important element of transformation. Without it, we cannot achieve high-growth momentum and sustain high-growth momentum,” said Yeah, adding that the construction projects were merely supposed to jumpstart economic development by stimulating growth in other sectors like the services sector.

Investment in education was needed for long-term progress, analysts said. — Reuters pic

“Once these projects are underway… we should refocus our economic agenda on reforms, regulatory reforms, how we can enhance the business and investment climate to unleash private sector dynamism, entrepreneurship, and raise market efficiency and competitiveness.”

OSK Research head of research Chris Eng echoed Yeah’s views and noted that the government needed to shift its attention to soft infrastructure like education in the future to upgrade the economy.

“In the long run, there needs to be focus on software elements… like education, policies to encourage entrepreneurship and investment,” said Eng.

Political analyst James Chin pointed out that most of the mega projects would not spur the economy as they relied on funds from government-linked companies (GLCs) instead of actual private investors that were meant to drive most of the government’s ambitious projects.

“In all the mega projects, all the private counterparts are GLCs. They are not the real private sector,” said Chin, honing in on the Warisan Merdeka project where government-linked investment corporation Permodalan Nasional Berhad (PNB) said it had sufficient funds to complete the project.

“There is no real FDI (foreign direct investment) and no real money coming in. It is internally-generated money,” he added.

Previously, the Performance Management and Delivery Unit (Pemandu) identified investments worth RM1.38 trillion over 10 years for the ETP, of which 60 per cent would come from the private sector, 32 per cent from GLCs and eight per cent from the government.

The investment aims to double Malaysia’s per capita income and push the country into the ranks of “developed” nations by 2020, rebalancing Asia’s third-most export-driven economy towards domestic demand and the service sector.

Chin, a Monash University professor, called on the government points its attention instead on developing a services and knowledge economy in a bid to achieve Vision 2020.

“It (construction) won’t help us with a high-income economy. Refocus on the services and knowledge economy, like bringing back talented people from overseas,” he said.

Najib had announced in his Budget 2011 speech that a Talent Corporation will be set up early next year to arrest the country’s growing brain drain problem that is threatening his vision of turning Malaysia into a high-income nation by 2020.

About 700,000 Malaysians are currently living abroad, with half of them in Singapore, while the rest can be found mostly in Australia, Britain and the United States.

The number of Malaysian migrants rose by more than 100-fold in a 45-year period, from 9,576 Malaysians in 1960 to 1,489,168 Malaysians in 2005, according to the World Bank.

Political analyst Lim Teck Ghee was similarly critical of Najib’s grandiose construction projects, pointing out that such projects were unsustainable and likely to rack up higher bills than initially estimated.

“Not only are they not sustainable, but so called iconic projects often turn out to be white elephant projects which have massive costs overruns and take much longer to complete,” said Lim, citing the Istana Negara project as an example.

The cost of the new palace project in Jalan Duta has ballooned to more than RM935 million from the RM400 million figure originally announced by the government in 2006.

The Centre for Policy Initiatives director also highlighted several skyscraper projects in Osaka, Japan that failed to draw investors and resulted in massive public bail-outs in 2002.

“There are plenty of examples from cities such as Osaka where three huge skyscraper projects — the Asian Trade Centre, the World Trade Centre and the Minatomachi Distribution Centre — were forced to seek protection from their creditors. The projects also failed to attract investor support and businesses shunned moving into them,” said Lim.

                This entry was posted on Monday, 25 October 2010, 10:19 am and is filed under
Budget Debate
,
Economics
,
Finance
,
Najib Razak
. You can follow any responses to this entry through
RSS 2.0
.


“No Mega Tower” fb campaign – 157,264 @ 8.30 am 25/10/10

Latest score of “No Mega Tower” fb campaign – 157,264 @ 8.30 am today, 25/10/10.

Forty-eight hours ago, it was 113,205, an increase of 44,059 or about 1,000 addition per hour.

In contrast, the support Mega Tower fb campaign recorded 1,585 at 8.30 am 25/10/10, an increase of a miserable 960 in the past 48 hours or 20 per hour – as it was 625 previously.

                This entry was posted on Monday, 25 October 2010, 8:58 am and is filed under
IT
. You can follow any responses to this entry through
RSS 2.0
.


Malaysia Chronicle denied basic right of legal representation by MCMC

Tuesday, October 26, 2010

by
Wong Choon Mei

Malaysia Chronicle

When my hand-phone alarm woke me at 5am this morning, it was with reluctance and a heavy heart that I opened my eyes. At the back of my mind the whole weekend was my 11am interview or interrogation by the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission.

And true enough, it turned out not to be a pleasant experience.

Less than 10 minutes into the meeting at the MCMC headquarters in Cyberjaya, my lawyer Latheefa Koya was ‘booted out’ from the room by none other than the director of the enforcement department, who personally came to ‘collect’ her.

And in doing so, he denied me of my fundamental right to legal representation.

Now, those of you who know Latheefa will know what a brave person she is and how very vocal she can be. But perhaps sensing my nervousness, she helped to restore calm to my troubled thoughts after she had argued for many minutes with the MCMC officials.

Finally, she allowed them to speak with me alone, but of course, only after whispering a barrage of advice into my ear. Sad to say, the words promptly twitched out of my other ear!

Thus, began nearly two-and-half hours of questioning into my background, Malaysia Chronicle and the article I wrote on Thursday entitled Najib warns of ‘crushed bodies’, ‘lost lives’, ‘ethnic cleansing’ if status-quo not kept….

In particular, they focused on his comments which I had quoted from a well-known news portal.

“Even if our bodies are crushed and our lives lost, brothers and sisters, whatever happens, we must defend Putrajaya.”

“What I am saying is not surprising. In the 20th century, we have seen cases of punishment without trial in the United States, the holocaust tragedy in Europe, the slaughter of Palestinians in the Middle East and the ethnic cleansing in Bosnia and Rwanda. Imagine, what is the outcome, if every generation of Malaysians question the social contract which were agreed upon by their forefather.”

Out of this rash of words, there were only three phrases that the MCMC was interested in – bodies crushed, lives lost and ethnic cleansing.

The two recording officers also told me I was being investigated for possible breach of Section 211 and 233 of the Communications and Multimedia Act 1998. Each offense carry a maximum fine of RM50,000 and/or jail of up to one-year. (Click into the sections or scroll down do see what these provisions are about)

One of the most memorable question was, did I think I had broken the laws and why? My answer was just a brief I disagree.

In fact, neither has the news-portal which reported the comments run foul of the law. And for the simple reason that the quotes were not imagined or made up but were really part of Najib’s speech.

The quotes can even be found in Bernama’s full-text English translation of his speech, which was delivered in Malay.

Even if we are broken or divorced from the life of the body, brothers and sisters, we must defend Putrajaya at all costs. – Bernama

What I am say is not surprising. In the 20th century, we have been shown case of punishment without trial in the United States, the holocaust tragedy in Europe, the slaughter of Palestinians in West Asia and the ethnic cleansing in Bosnia and Rwanda. So, one can imagine the result, if each generation of Malaysians take a stand to question the fairness of the national social contract that had been previously sealed by consensus by our predecessors. – Bernama

So, ‘bodies crushed’ is Even if we are broken and ‘lives lost’ is divorced from the life of the body while ‘ethnic cleansing’ is ethnic cleansing.

Why were the phrases slightly different? Because the reporter from the news portal would have translated on the spot as Najib spoke since not all the media were given the text, unlike Bernama. But even so, the translations were eerily accurate.

It is also telling that Najib has not denied making these outrageous remarks. Yet, the news-portal and Malaysia Chronicle have been picked on and are now being investigated. Why?

To me the answer is obvious – intimidation! Why?

To wear us out so that we will give up on reporting and writing anything that is critical of our 6th prime minister!

What will happen now? Probably more questioning, off-and-on harrassment and perhaps a few raids and confiscation of laptops and computer equipment.

I have to admit I do feel slightly weary. Not scared but a bit tired. Still, no way will I give up the fight yet – otherwise each day will become worse and worse of a living nightmare in Malaysia – our beautiful Malaysia.

Don’t you think so?

Meanwhile, my sincere thanks to everyone who called and SMSed good wishes. Special thanks to Latheefa.

———————————————————————————-

Malaysia Chronicle appends below Section 211 and 233

Section 211. Prohibition on provision of offensive content

(1) No content applications service provider, or other person using a content applications service, shall provide content which is indecent, obscene, false, menacing, or offensive in character with intent to annoy, abuse, threaten or harass any person.

(2) A person who contravenes subsection (1) commits an offence and shall, on conviction, be liable to a fine not exceeding fifty thousand ringgit or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding one year or to both and shall also be liable to a further fine of one thousand ringgit for every day or part of a day during which the offence is continued after conviction.

Section 233. Improper use of network facilities or network service, etc.

(1) A person who —

(a) by means of any network facilities or network service or applications service knowingly —

(i) makes, creates or solicits; and (ii) initiates the transmission of, any comment, request, suggestion or other communication which is obscene, indecent, false, menacing or offensive in character with intent to annoy, abuse, threaten or harass another person; or (b) initiates a communication using any applications service, whether continuously, repeatedly or otherwise, during which communication may or may not ensue, with or without disclosing his identity and with intent to annoy, abuse, threaten or harass any person at any number or electronic address,

commits an offence.

(2) A person who knowingly —

(a) by means of a network service or applications service provides any obscene communication for commercial purposes to any person; or (b) permits a network service or applications service under the person ‘s control to be used for an activity described in paragraph (a),

commits an offence.

(3) A person who commits an offence under this section shall, on conviction,be liable to a fine not exceeding fifty thousand ringgit or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding one year or to both and shall also be liable to a further fine of one thousand ringgit for every day during which the offence is continued after conviction.

                This entry was posted on Tuesday, 26 October 2010, 9:32 pm and is filed under
Human Rights
,
IT
. You can follow any responses to this entry through
RSS 2.0
.


Malaysia down slightly in graft index

By
Asrul Hadi Abullah Sani

The Malaysian Insider

October 26, 2010

Kuala Lumpur – Malaysia has dipped slightly lower in Transparency International’s (TI) Corruption Perception Index (CPI) this year after the country experienced its worse ranking ever last year.

The anti-graft watchdog TI announced today that the country’s corruption index score declined from 4.5 to 4.4 out of 10, with 10 being the least corrupt. Malaysia’s ranking still remains the same as last year, at 56 out of 178countries.

The annual TI CPI measures how corrupt a country is in the public sector based on data sourced from 13 different polls and surveys from 10 independent institutions over a period of two years. The three least corrupt countries in the world are, in order, Denmark, New Zealand and Singapore.

Malaysia’s previous worst scores below 5 were 4.8 in 2000, 4.9 in 2002 and 4.5 last year.

The country’s ranking puts it on par with Namibia and Turkey.

TI believes that the Najib Administration still lacks the political will to stem out corruption and stressed that steps must be taken to tackle problems with implementation.

“Given Malaysia’s aspiration to be a high income and developed country by the year 2020, the commitment to fight corruption must be clear and firm. CPI results have consistently showed direct correlation between the level of corruption and economic development of a nation,” said Datuk Paul Low, the country president of the local branch of TI.

Low stressed that stressed that the country will not become a high income nation if corruption is still rampant.

“A high income economy can only be achieved where there are efficient delivery systems, where the organs of the government and institutions govern and manage the country and its resources professionally, responsibly and with integrity, transparency and good governance, in the interest of the nation and its citizen,” he said.

Despite government efforts to fight corruption, Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) inability to prosecute “big fish,” lack of progress in the Port Klang Free Zone (PKFZ) fiasco, no action by the Attorney-General in the “Lingam tapes” case and contracts without open tender have continued to haunt public perception.

However, Low argued that the country statistically has not declined but has remained the same.

“Statistically we have more or less remained the same. Measures have been taken by the Malaysian government such as efforts in the NKRA which began in April.  So to be fair up to now, we cannot really see the result because perception takes a while to change.

“This is because perception is based on past experience so unless or until what the government do affect the life of the individual and the society then only a radical change in perception will happen. So it is understandable why we remain at same spot since last year. However with stronger political will from the government, we hope that perception will become better and score will improve,” he said.

He added that the main issue facing the government is not petty corruption but grand corruption.

“The issue of petty corruption like day to day bribing is really being handled by the government now. But for Malaysia, the issues is the grand corruption like mega projects, procurements, source of political financing, lack of accountability and giving more independence and oversight to the Election Commission. These are the big issue that needs to be tackled before we can see big improvements,” he said.

Low believes that with the current government initiatives, the country will only begin to move up the ranking in two years.

“I believe that by the method used, a moving average of two years. So at least two years for things to change,” he said.

Low noted that the country’s index should not viewed on its own but, more importantly, in relation to other countries worldwide and especially those within the Asean region.

At first place is Singapore with far and away the best score, topping 9.3. While Brunei retained it second place among Asean countries at 5.5.

Low recommended the government to make MACC autonomous in enforcing the law and have the body to report direct to parliament.

He also said the Official Secrets Act (OSA), Sedition Act and Printing Presses and Publications Act should be repealed to ensure freedom of speech and information.

“We need to reform political financing and regulation of political parties and elections, and public disclosure of politician’s assets.

“There must also be effective and vigorous enforcement of existing laws and policies, including money laundering and transfers by suspects in high profile corruption cases,” he said.

                This entry was posted on Tuesday, 26 October 2010, 9:01 pm and is filed under
Corruption
. You can follow any responses to this entry through
RSS 2.0
.


The ‘social contract’ — Concerned Scholars

by
Dr Lim Teck Ghee, Dr Mavis Puthucheary, Dr Azmi Sharom, Dr Toh Kin Woon and Dr Wan Zawawi Ibrahim

October 27, 2010

We would like to provide some  feedback to the speech made by Prime Minister Najib Razak on 21 October 2010 to the Umno general assembly in which he gave the impression that there is a ‘social contract’ whose terms are set in stone. He also told the delegates that no Malaysian should question it.

It is necessary to note that there is a range of views amongst us on the social contract issue and on how to respond to the Prime Minister’s advice.

One colleague has argued that it is not yet time for an “organized effort” of civil society to make such a statement as it may provoke negative reactions that may be harmful to our common pursuit of a fair and united nation.

Another has expressed concern that we must not play into the hands of politicians who will mobilize Malay support by trying to show that the non-Malays have reneged on their so-called promise to accept Malay political superiority in exchange for citizenship.

A third colleague has noted that there is really no need to contest what is ‘written’ in the social contract. Rather, we should question where a copy of the social contract is to be found so we can verify and discuss its contents and meaning.

Despite our different points of view, we are in agreement on three key points.

* It is important for Malaysians not to be gagged into silence on what is perhaps the most contentious issue standing in the way of better inter-communal relations in the country. The quicker we can

reach consensus on what the social contract means — not only in terms of what was agreed by the nation’s early leaders in the past but also, more importantly, on how this agreement should be understood by Malaysians today — the less divided and more hopeful will be our future.

* For us to reach this consensus, it is important to have the facts on what took place during that critical period of our history fully disclosed and available for public discussion. In particular, we will need to have the relevant reports of the Reid Commission so that Malaysians have the opportunity to read and understand the logic and wisdom of our early leaders and do not have to depend on politically skewed interpretations of what is supposed to comprise any agreement or social contract for that period.

* At the same time it is necessary for constitutional and legal experts, historians and other scholars to lend their expertise to the public understanding. Professional organizations such as the Bar Council, the Malaysian Social Science Association, and other bodies should organize talks, seminars and forums to ensure that the best minds on the subject can have their opinions disseminated to the public.

We believe that the Malaysian public has reached a level of political maturity so that we can have a rational and public debate on the way forward in terms of any inter-communal accord or understanding arrived at, and on what needs to be honoured and respected. For that reason, we are opposed to the position of Umno and MCA which is tantamount to decreeing a ban on public discussion of the issue.

The danger is that in not debating the issue openly — which is what the two main BN parties seem to be driving at — there is a real danger not only of driving that debate underground but also of reinforcing or entrenching ethnocentric interpretations that do not reflect the true intent of the constitutional agreement reached more than 50 years ago.

* Issued and signed by  Dr Lim Teck Ghee, Dr Mavis Puthucheary, Dr Azmi Sharom, Dr Toh Kin Woon and Dr Wan Zawawi Ibrahim.

                This entry was posted on Wednesday, 27 October 2010, 5:42 pm and is filed under
Constitution
,
Najib Razak
,
UMNO
. You can follow any responses to this entry through
RSS 2.0
.


Budget 2011 : Challenge UMNO, MCA, MIC, Gerakan, Sabah, Sarawak Ministers to follow Nazri’s example

2011 Budget not a child of New Economic Model but bears all the marks of old discredited Mahathirish policies (Part 4 of 5)

Najib had himself told Umno that Umno must reform or it will be reformed – that he would execute the New Economic Model or he will be executed!

Najib has found that he biggest enemies of his four critical signature pillars to effect a national transformation come from within – whether 1Malaysia People First Performance Now concept, Government Transformation Programme, New Economic Model and to use the Tenth Malaysia Plan and the annual budgets to operationalise the GTP and ETP.

I commend the Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz for his courage and conviction in declaring that he is Malaysian first and Malay next, although more than six months after I had thrown the challenge in Parliament to all Ministers whether they have the 1Malaysia DNA and are prepared to declare that they are Malaysians first and their race second, which is the declared objective of Najib’s 1Malaysia concept.

I share his disappointment when he said in a recent interview that he was puzzled and regretted why his Cabinet colleagues did not speak out as he did, even the Ministers from MCA.

Let me quote Nazri said in his interview with the Red Tomato publication:

“They are people who are just like me in the cabinet, but they are afraid. Even the MCA ministers, none of them has repeated what I’ve said that they are first Malaysians then Chinese – none of them. To me, it is not right to say that if we had said so, then we’d fall into the ‘trap’ of Kit Siang.

“What ‘trap’? The Indian Ministers didn’t come out to say that, other Malay Ministers did not, Kadazan and Iban Ministers also didn’t say so. I am a Malay, yet I’m taking the risk to come out to say. Why others can’t? Let me tell you, they all agree with me….”

Let all the Ministers, whether Umno, MCA, Gerakan, MIC, Sabah and Sarawak BN component parties explain and declare during the winding-up of the budget debate what is it they are afraid of and why they dare not declare that they are Malaysians first and race second as propounded by the 1Malaysia concept?

Next :
Hishammuddin should answer to serious allegations in Mat Zain’s open letter

[
Speech (part 4) in Parliament on the 2011 Budget on Wednesday, 27th October 2010
]

                This entry was posted on Thursday, 28 October 2010, 3:56 pm and is filed under
1Malaysia
,
Najib Razak
. You can follow any responses to this entry through
RSS 2.0
.