Shahrizat is Najib’s millstone

Mariam Mokhtar | Feb 6, 2012

Malaysiakini

There was one serious flaw in the success story of Malaya: The emergent Malaysia bred generations of Malay politicians who, when caught with their hands in the public kitty, will do anything to hang on to power.

They continue nonchalantly because they are confident their peers will play along with the charade.

They delight in “proving their innocence” by swearing on the Quran. Some think that by seeking absolution from God, by going on umrahs, they are able to convince the god-fearing public, that the pilgrimage is a testament of their innocence.

The National Feedlot Corporation (NFC) scandal hangs like a millstone around the neck of the Women, Family and Community Development Minister Shahrizat Abdul Jalil.

Acting like a wounded animal, she has chosen to belittle Islam, and cast doubt on the intelligence of Malaysians. She has even striven to involve Wanita Umno.

On her return from the umrah, Shahrizat said: “Why have I went [sic] to Mecca three times in two-and-a-half months? Because I’m God-fearing, I ask for guidance from Allah.”

Instead of inviting understanding and compassion, Shahrizat only increased our contempt of her. How can Shahrizat spend so much time away from work? What is her ministry’s Key Performance Index? How can she waste so much of the taxpayers’ money on three trips to Saudi Arabia, in as many months?

Are we to infer that holy visits are a proof of innocence? In times of austerity, how did she stretch her ministerial wage?

Perhaps, the opposition should table a parliamentary motion for all ministers to declare their expenses, and NOT just their assets.

The fault is not her’s entirely. The whole award system lacks transparency. The MACC and the police drag their feet on investigations. The prime minister only pretends to act like one.

The RM250 million of misappropriated public funds swirl around the NFC, whose chairman Mohamed Salleh Ismail is Shahrizat’s husband.

Money not disbursed to satellite ranchers

Their children are also implicated and it is alleged that they have business dealings with other ministerial children.

The Auditor-General, Ambrin Buang, has stated that the audit was not on the NFC, as a whole, and that it established that the NFC had failed to meet its target.

The audit was merely to ascertain why money was not disbursed to the satellite ranchers despite being channelled to the ministry/NFC.

In an interview with Rafizi Ramli (left), the PKR strategic director who highlighted the NFC scandal, PKR used the audit report to demand accountability in government funding: “We carried out our own investigation and followed leads provided by whistleblowers.

“The resultant exposés are clear indictments that public funds had been channelled outside NFC to benefit the family of a federal minister.”

Rafizi alleged that various companies which had been set up and received NFC funding, were owned wholly by Shahrizat’s family. Capital assets of the NFC had no relevance to the cattle industry and targets agreed with the government were not achieved.

Simple questions were asked: “When these businesses don’t seem to be making money, who is going to repay the loans?

“Why was this company, owned by a minister’s family, chosen as an integrator for this project when they had no experience in the cattle industry and they openly admitted this?

“Why did they transfer money to entities controlled by them and then go on shopping sprees?

“This is a government-funded project, why did they spend exorbitantly when the targets were not met?”

Deputy Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin defended the NFC project and rejected opposition demands for a royal commission of inquiry (RCI) to investigate the NFC, because he claimed that current investigations were sufficient.

Rafizi rubbished his comments and said: “The NFC scandal has come to a stage where normal investigation will not be able to unravel the extent of abuse and political interference. That is why Pakatan has stepped up calls for an RCI.

“We started with revelations of financial misappropriation of public funds, but gradually we discovered that the extent was worse than anticipated.

“Lately, there had been clear attempts to cover up the scandal. This suggests that public officials were coerced into making statements favourable to the NFC.”

‘Shady deals’ conducted behind the scene

Asked if the AG had made a U-turn, Rafizi said: “It was unprecedented for the Auditor-General to bow down to political pressure.

“We have also established the modus operandi used to transfer funds to companies or business entities owned by the minister’s family.”

Rafizi alleged that many shady deals were being conducted behind the scenes, despite Najib’s claims that NFC’s assets had been frozen.

“There is a frantic move to restructure the groups and transfer assets so as to cover their tracks, in preparation for a media blitz by NFC, later this month.

“So this is no longer an issue about cows. It is about the whole weight of government resources and machinery being bent to save a minister, whose family has clearly misappropriated public funds for purposes not agreed by the government.

“A scandal of this scale requires a far reaching investigation that only an RCI has the power to accomplish.”

Supporting calls for investigations into the NFC is DAP’s Lim Kit Siang (right) who has urged patriotic Malaysians “to demand in a loud and clear voice an RCI into the NFC scandal”.

Rafizi agreed: “Public pressure is paramount to this effort. Najib’s administration lives in fear of a public backlash, so they monitor activities on the internet and carry out surveys regularly to gauge the public sentiment.”

The PKR strategic director discussed tactics to make the government accede to an RCI.

“To those who are bold enough to participate in a rally, please also organise rallies and get people to participate.

“Letters to online media, mainstream newspapers and government websites will help maintain the pressure.

“Better still, if people interact constantly with the prime minister via twitter to pressure him for an RCI on NFC – he would be pressured one way or another to respond. Comments made at PM’s blog and online media do make a lot of difference.”

Later this month, Rafizi will team up with Ampang MP Zuraida Kamaruddin, on a nationwide campaign.

“We will sell books and meet the public to explain why an RCI is necessary. As this gathers momentum, we need the public to show up at these roadshows. We hope Najib has no option but to agree to an RCI.”

Following the opposition’s investigations, Rafizi stressed that several questions had been directed at both Najib and the BN.

“So far no answers have been forthcoming.”

——————————————————————————–

MARIAM MOKHTAR is a non-conformist traditionalist from Perak, a bucket chemist and an armchair eco-warrior. In ‘real-speak’, this translates into that she comes from Ipoh, values change but respects culture, is a petroleum chemist and also an environmental pollution-control scientist.

                This entry was posted on Tuesday, 7 February 2012, 11:09 am and is filed under
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Shahrizat returning to her first Cabinet meeting tomorrow after her 3-week leave triumphant or chastened?

Is the Minister for Women, Family and Community Development, Datuk Seri Shahrizat Abdul Jalil returning to her first Cabinet meeting  tomorrow after her three-week leave triumphant or chastened?

All the signs are that Shahrizat has returned from her three-week leave completely unrepentant about the RM330 million National Feedlot Centre/National Feedlot Corporation (NFC/NFCorpn) “cattle condo” scandal which had plunged the 34-month Najib premiership to the lowest point in terms of public accountability and integrity and threatened to topple Malaysia’s Transparency International Corruption (TI) Perception Index (CPI) 2012 next year to a new low in both CPI score and ranking – even lower than the deplorable 60th ranking and 4.3 score in TI CPI 2011.

Shahrizat came back from her leave even more combative and truculent, as if challenging not only her known public detractors but the unseen forces in UMNO and Barisan Nasional to a battle royale to force her to relinquish her positions in both government and party over the NFC scandal – as Cabinet Minister and Umno Wanita chief!

The Cabinet meeting tomorrow will be the national focus tomorrow, whether the Prime Minister and the Ministers dare to state the obvious – that she should extend her leave as the rationale of her three-week leave to allow the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Agency (MACC) to clear her of any corruption, abuse of power or conflict of interests in the “cattle condo” scandal has not yet been achieved – or to be cowed by her triumphant return, although MCA President Datuk Seri Chua Soi Lek had blamed her for the “poor handling” of “cattle condo” scandal, causing the public to perceive the NFC project as “real rotten”?

Shahrizat made a very unrepentant, defiant but eloquent retort in mid-December “Which UMNO leader does not have problem”, which probably explained why she felt she was in safe company and enjoyed both immunity and impunity for her role in the “cattle condo” scandal.

Can every Cabinet Minister publicly declare that he or she does not have similar problems as Shahrizat and does not  have any next-of-kin, whether husband, wife, son or daughter who have taken massive government loans for whatever projects which were misused for purposes completely unrelated to the loan disbursement – like the purchase of luxury condominiums in Bangsar and Singapore, land in Putrajaya or holidays trips and family expenses when the RM250 million loan was to promote the country’s beef self-sufficiency?

The Cabinet tomorrow owes the nation a satisfactory explanation why after nearly four months of public expose or nearly seven months since the first submission of the Auditor-General’s Report 2010 which first threw light on the RM330 million “cattle condo” scandal, the Najib premiership is at a complete loss as to how to give a satisfactory accounting on the RM330 million “cattle condo” scandal?

Malaysians are shocked by the Malaysiakini report this afternoon that the MACC had not yet interrogated Shahrizat over the “cattle condo” scandal.

Although the MACC Investigations Director Datuk Mustafar Ali revealed that the “cattle condo” case had been classified under Section 23 of the MACC Act for abuse of power which carries a maximum jail sentence of 20 years, he also admitted that Shahrizat had yet to be called in.

As Shahrizat had announced that she was taking three weeks leave to allow MACC to investigate and clear her name of corruption in the NFC scandal, one would have thought that the first thing she would have done when starting her three-week leave would be to visit the MACC to give a full statement to enable the MACC to clear her name.  Why didn’t she do it?

And if Shahrizat did not volunteer to give a statement to MACC, why didn’t MACC call her up so that it could clear Shahrizat of any corrupt wrongdoing in the NFC scandal?

It would appear that Shahrizat’s three-week leave is nothing but a charade.

Malaysians still remember how initially, MACC refused to investigate the “cattle condo” scandal insisting that it was a police matter. It was only as a result of nation-wide outrage that the MACC changed its tack and announced its own investigations.

MACC had seriously undermined its own credibility, integrity and professionalism when it fouled up the Teoh Beng Hock and Sarbaini death cases. It will completely destroy its reputation if it is unable to re-establish its credibility, integrity and professionalism in its investigations of the “cattle condo” scandal.

A former senior police officer, Datuk Mat Zain, who was the former KL city CID chief, had questioned in an open letter to the Inspector-General of Police the police’s reluctance to act against Shahrizat’s family in the NFC scandal, saying it should only take “hours” to determine if they had misused project funds for their umrah trips.

Mat Zain had also called on the Prime Minister to instruct the police, graftbusters and the Attorney-General to complete investigations into the NFC scandal within a fortnight.

Is there any Cabinet Minister tomorrow who dare to ask Shahrizat to fully clear herself of any wrongdoing, whether abuse of power or conflict of interests, in the NFC scandal before she resumes her duty as Minister for Women, Family and Community Development?

                This entry was posted on Tuesday, 7 February 2012, 5:08 pm and is filed under
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‘Trust’ Najib!

— Sam Peh

The Malaysian Insider

Feb 07, 2012

FEB 7 — Why all this cynicism about Najib Razak’s “trust me and I can help you” statement? This is a man who can be “trusted”.

Let us examine the evidence since he became prime minister in 2009.

He can be “trusted” to keep silent when Perkasa bashes the Chinese and Indians and questions the loyalty of non-Malays.

He can be “trusted” to keep silent when supporters of Umno drag a cow head through the streets in protest against the construction of a temple in Shah Alam.

He can be “trusted” to pretend to be deaf when Umno politicians make all sorts of accusations against Christians and Christianity. (Note to PM: Not all Indians are Hindus)

He can be “trusted” to understand that it’s fine for ministers’ families to get government soft loans and use the money for better-yielding purchases.

He can be “trusted” to use 1 Malaysia as a sticker for any venture that basically gives money to voters in return for support.

He can be “trusted” to allow state companies to be sold to government cronies and even national projects awarded without open tenders.

He can be “trusted” to start a health insurance scheme where the people have to pay, although the government provides primary health-care.

Please “trust” Najib to do what it takes to keep power.

                This entry was posted on Tuesday, 7 February 2012, 9:27 pm and is filed under
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Ubah is on Blackberry!

ubah.my

Add Ubah to BBM (pin: 216F89DC) to receive updates directly from your BlackBerry as the 13th General Election approaches.

Add Ubah to BBM and recommend to your other friends today! Ubah is waiting…

Why BBM?

We are using BBM as “mobile app” on Blackberry platform.

After much consideration, discussion and research, we chose BBM because it allows us to do all that we want to do in a Blackberry mobile application and also because it is economical to run.

                This entry was posted on Tuesday, 7 February 2012, 9:26 am and is filed under
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Warkah dari warga Felda

 — Sakmongkol AK47

The Malaysian Insider

Feb 07, 2012

7 FEB — Ini warkah dari warga Felda yang saya turunkan secara verbatim. Tidak syak lagi, walaupun selesai penyenraian FGV kelak, isiu nya tidak akan reda. Mudah mudahan ianya akan meningkatkan kesedaran politik warga Felda yang lain. — Sakmongkol.

CUKONG BELIA FELDA JAMIN SELEPAS PENYENARAIAN BERIBU PEKERJAAN UNTUK ANAK FELDA DIWUJUDKAN? KAH KAH KAH…

Woit cukong-cukong mengaku pemimpin belia Felda! Dah buat homework belum apa yang berlaku di Felda Global Venture tentang peluang pekerjaan belia Felda akan datang selepas penyenaraian? Makin kencap kencup kempis dan terus kempis … Kah Kah Kah.

Apa bukti???? Tanya si cukong. Woitt!! Cukong-cukong tahukah apa maksud Outsourcing? Ini kata lebai Google
“Outsourcing is the act of one company contracting with another company to provide services that might otherwise be performed by in-house employees. Often the tasks that are outsourced could be performed by the company itself, but in many cases there are financial advantages that come from outsourcing. Many large companies now outsource jobs such as call center services, e-mail services, and payroll. These jobs are handled by separate companies that specialize in each service, and are often located overseas.”
 Apa makna ini?? Maknanya anak dara Jengka melepas jadi kerani payroll … dara sunti Trolak melepas jadi receptionist … janda berhias Lok Heng tak ada can jadi sumber manusia … Kah Kah Kah. Mat-mat belia Felda lagi la melepas terus join PAS … Kah Kah Kah.

Kapitalisme duniaberasal dari Wall Street. Kapitalisme Malaysia berasal dari Bursa Saham Kuala Lumpur. Konsep kapitalisme mudah iaitu memperbanyakkan wang dengan cara paling murah. Kalau ada tanggungjawab sosial cuma cara tipu rakyat tak mahu bayar cukai. Faham tidak??

Woit cukong-cukong! Kepala kapitalisme dalam Felda Global adalah Sabri Ahmad. Siapa dia ni?? Sime Darby tendang dia sebab kena kencing RM120 juta. Tak sampai setahun pegang Pengerusi MPOB pun kena tendang juga tak cerdik buat kerja. Sapa sudi ambil dia kerja dan kasi upah lebih RM2 juta setahun? Felda … Kah Kah Kah.

Woit cukong-cukong! Kapla jingga kapitalis Sabri Ahmad ada idea meletopp … untuk fokus teras perniagaan maka kerja remeh temeh perlu kita kontrakkan keluar. Jadi kita lebih berjaya dan tak kencup macam Nokia katanya … Kah Kah Kah. Sabri rasa dia lagi pandai dari Nokia, jadi Sabri mahu kontrakkan kerja-kerja kepada syarikat luar. Ini kerja hebat … anak Melayu yang hebat ini Sabri. Orang Finland yang asaskan Nokia dan korporat dunia patut datang berguru dengan Sabri. Macam mana FGV syarikat rugi bakal jadi syarikat besar sebab pakai tanah bapak 360,000 hektar dan gadai aset Felda milik Koperasi Felda di BSKL … Kah Kah Kah. Tak perlu susah payah macam Nokia kena buat R&D, bina kilang dan macam-macam … Kah Kah Kah.

Projek Outsourcing Felda Global Venture ada nama menarik … Shared Service Centre. Untuk potong kos buruh+kebajikan+bonus (overhead), kapitalis Sabri Ahmad rekrut bekas CEO Proton Edar jadi kapla jingga. Kalau mahu rekrut CEO kenalah gaji sama CEO Proton Edar atau lebih … berapa gaji kapitalis Sabri bayar ex-CEO Proton untuk kurangkan pekerja? Ironi sungguh … Kah Kah Kah. Kita tumpang bangga kapitalis Sabri kepala hotak bijak … bayar gaji tinggi untuk kurangkan pekerja … Kah Kah Kah. Kita lagi bangga kalau ada Call Centre Felda Global di Mumbai …
“Yellow … Felda Global Venture Call Centre Here. Yes Sir you are calling Felda Global Call Centre. You ask me Anak Peneroka mana? Of course sir I’m from Felda Bombay not that far from Felda Kampung New Zealand, only 3,500 miles far only.”
 Kalau ini berlaku sudah sah anak dara Jengka cuma ada peluang jawab sms dan telefon balak …

Cukong-cukong Belia Felda tak percaya … anak-anak Felda tetap ada jawatan banyak dalam Felda Global Venture selepas penyenaraian. Itu janji Kaki Lutu pada kami … Kah Kah Kah. Woit! Cukong-cukong tengok nama-nama dalam projek outsourcing ini:

1.    Sri Asnita Mashat

2.    Masrina Wijee

3.    Andrew Lee

4.    Kavita Rekhraj

5.    Glenn Tann

6.    Lee Pooi Chie

7.    Cinty Chandrasekharan

8.    Therese Tan

9.    Lee Sok Chen

10.    Farahana Azmin

11.    Dennis Cheek

12.    Christine Kon

13.    Frank Chai

14.    Lasti Hardiani

15.    Kania Adityarani

Woitt!! Ini betul-betul 1 Malaysia. Kalau betul-betul Felda nak jadikan 1 Malaysia cakap saja Melayu Felda tak marah. Ini sudah Kaki Lutu sudah janji kerja-kerja keutamaan Melayu sebab Kaki Lutu mahu cari makan dan populariti dalam parti Melayu. Kaki Lutu janji belia Felda dapat banyak kerja lepas penyenaraian. Sebelum penyenaraian sudah jadi 1 Malaysia, nasib-nasib awek Melayu No. 10 itu anak Felda, kalau tidak 0%, zero … yilek … anak Felda … Kah Kah Kah. Woitt!! Nama-nama tersebut bukan direka-reka … ada susuk tubuhnya, yang slim, yang gedempul, yang cokelat, yang hitam yang sepet … semua wujud di Balai Felda tempat Kaki Lutu bersemayam.

Cukong-cukong mengaku pemimpin belia Felda berani lagi jamin beribu-ribu pekerjaan untuk anak Felda akan terhasil selepas penyenaraian … Kah Kah Kah.

PS: Anak dara, dara sunti dan janda berhias sila mogok dari melayan cukong-cukong ini berkaraoke dan ambil kesempatan atas diri anda lagi sampai Outsourcing ini dibatalkan … Kah Kah Kah

* Sakmongkol AK47 is the nom de plume of Datuk Mohd Ariff Sabri Abdul Aziz. He was Pulau Manis assemblyman (2004-2008).

                This entry was posted on Tuesday, 7 February 2012, 8:06 pm and is filed under
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A Critique of the ETP: Part 3 (ii) – Execution (ii) – The hothouse labs probably killed innovation

By
Dr. Ong Kian Ming BSc (LSE), MPhil (Cantab), PhD (Duke)

Teh Chi-Chang, CFA, BSc (Warwick), MBA (Cantab)

Refsa

The ETP resulted from 12 ‘labs’.
 Each lab comprised 30-50 experts who had 8 weeks to research best practices and innovations, distill them in intense brainstorming sessions and support them with detailed analysis.  The result was 131 Entry Point Projects (EPPs) across 12 National Key Economic Areas (NKEAs) that would maximise gross national income with minimal public-funding support. Such is the PEMANDU narration.

Truly transformative ideas may have had no chance.
 Much was made of the private sector participation. But large companies would naturally dominate. Start-up companies, even if invited, cannot afford to release staff for 8 weeks. Consider this example: Ten years ago, Microsoft, IBM and HP would have dominated any lab to transform the IT industry. Google was a cash-strapped start-up, Apple was in disarray and Facebook did not even exist. The incumbents would have been free to promote pet projects and stifle their competition.

Hothouse environment favoured incumbents with existing business plans.
 The tight time frame incentivised lab participants to select EPPs for which research was ready, rather than pursue alternatives. In addition, private sector participants would be expected to lobby heavily for their pet projects. Their duty is to maximise profits, not embark on public service ventures. Unless properly steered, the labs would be inclined to select heavily-promoted projects rather than the most transformative.

We see at least two ‘dud’ multi-billion ringgit projects.
 Their viability is questionable, their developers financially weak and taxpayer funding is required. Their selection as EPPs suggests serious weaknesses at the labs. More soon!

Fundamental defects in the lab process

PEMANDU
1
 makes much of the 12 NKEA ‘labs’ that brought together 500 experts from the private and pubic sectors to define and detail the ETP
2
. These labs, in 8 short weeks, detailed and defined the 131 EPPs (Entry Point Projects) across the 12 NKEAs (National Key Economic areas) that make up the ETP.

This week, in Part (ii) of our focus on Execution – the E’ in the DEEDS framework with which we are evaluating the ETP, we highlight two core defects of the lab process:

Unless properly guided by an independent, experienced and knowledgeable chairman, each lab would end up promoting the interests of the most vocal of the private sector participants, which might not necessarily be the most transformative projects.

Private sector participants in the lab would be expected to lobby intensively for their pet projects. In fact, they would be guilty of mismanagement if they did not. Private sector managers are expected to maximise profits for their shareholders, not embark on social service ventures;

The projects ultimately selected as EPPs and promoted by PEMANDU may kill genuinely transformative ideas being pursued by small companies outside.

The labs would favour the status quo and existing large companies rather than start-ups. Cash-strapped start-ups cannot afford to release staff for two months to attend labs. Large companies can send widely experienced lobbyists.

Consider this: Three of the biggest new developments in IT are Google, Facebook and Apple’s renewed success. Yet, they would have been poorly represented in any lab set up ten years ago to transform the IT industry. That lab would have been dominated by experts from the likes of IBM, Microsoft and HP (Hewlett-Packard) doing their best to cement their respective companies leadership. They certainly would not be nurturing potential competitors or transformative ideas.

Hothouse environment would have stifled innovation

The problem is exacerbated by the tight time frame in which the labs operated. Each lab had just eight weeks to deliver transformative projects. In this short period, 30 to 50 experts in each lab had to:

Fact-find and research best practices, success stories and innovations;

Distill these through ‘intense collaborative sessions of brainstorming’
3
; and

Syndicate them in more than 640 meetings with major stakeholders such as ministers and key government agencies
4
.

In this type of hot-house environment, it is the loudest and most persuasive voice that tends to be heard, which is not necessarily the most rational one.

Also, good ideas which require more intensive research and analysis are likely to be jettisoned in favour of projects for which groundwork is already in place. For example, let us consider the lab for the Tourism NKEA which yielded the Karamabunai Integrated Resort (Karambunai IR) as one of its EPPs.

Participants from Karambunai Corp Bhd would have a clear interest in promoting the idea of an integrated resort, since they already had plans drawn up prior to the ETP lab;

The time constraints and pressure to deliver would incentivise the PEMANDU staff and consultants to turn Karambunai’s plans into an EPP. Indeed, this is what seems to have happened. Karambunai Corp Bhd, in an announcement to Bursa Malaysia, said PEMANDU chose to use ‘drawings from Karambunai which has copyrights source and status’
5
;

It would also not be surprising if PEMANDU took the project at face value without scrutinising the investment, incremental gross national income (GNI) and jobs created numbers, given the intense time-pressure.

Why isn’t the auto sector one of the 12 NKEAs?

Our concern about private sector interests trumping genuinely transformative ideas is not academic. There is a glaring omission from the 12 NKEAs (National Key Economic Areas) prioritised by the government under the ETP
6
.

The 12 NKEAs are Agriculture; Business Services; Education, Electronics and Electrical; Financial Services; Healthcare; Greater KL/Klang Valley; Oil, Gas and Energy; Palm Oil; Communications, Content and Infrastructure; Tourism; and Wholesale and Retail.

Where is the automotive sector?

Malaysian taxpayers and Petronas have supported Proton, our national car company, for 25 years. Proton cars are actually 53% cheaper in Saudi Arabia than they are at home here in Malaysia
7
.

`We have to protect our national car industry’ is the justification given for the heavy tariffs and other obstacles placed on foreign cars in Malaysia. That being the case, why is the auto sector not classified as an NKEA?

On the other hand, if the government no longer deems the automotive sector as a priority sector, then tariffs and other forms of protection should be completely removed. The sector should be liberalised and open competition allowed, which will lead to cheaper cars for all Malaysians.

The exclusion of the auto industry puzzles industry experts such as Yamin Wong of the New Straits Times:

“It (Proton) is the only independent car company in South East Asia that has the full competency to build a car and with the management capability to absorb foreign car technology … It is a strategic asset that should be allowed to work for the country, i.e. be another regional car hub.”
8

Malaysia is the largest passenger car market in ASEAN. But the foreign automakers are investing heavily in Thailand instead, where the rules are clearer and environment more liberal.

Yamin points out that Proton has a state-of-the-art car manufacturing plant running significantly below capacity in Tanjung Malim. Foreign brands seeking preferential tariffs and entry into the ASEAN auto market should be encouraged to utilise the excess capacity. This would also create a whole network of supporting industries and thousands of jobs.

Why did this not happen? Why was the massive auto sector left out of the ETP? Yamin’s sources suggest private sector interests trumped national considerations. As REFSA points out, the primary loyalty of the private sector experts is to themselves and their bosses.

REFSA is not censuring these private sector participants. They acted perfectly rationally – they have their families and businesses to look after. Rather, it is the that was fatally flawed. The leaders of the ETP fell for these ideas that promoted the status quo instead of guiding the process towards really transformative and value-adding economic activities.

Potential ‘dud’ projects

There is an even more serious problem than the acceptance of EPPs that preserve the status quo. At least these projects are viable and will generate some investment and create some jobs. Even worse are potential ‘dud’ projects – projects with little chance for success if they are pursued as presently planned.

We see at least two projects of questionable viability, with financially weak private sector partners and which require taxpayer support. And no, the widely disparaged 1Malaysia email ETP for which financially-distressed Tricubes Berhad1 is the private sector partner is not one of them.

Tricubes is small potatoes relative to these two projects. These two projects run into billions of ringgit and are seeking hundreds of millions of ringgit of taxpayer funding. Their selection as EPPs suggests serious weaknesses at the labs and with the due diligence process at PEMANDU. More soon!

________

1
 The acronym that the Performance Management and Delivery Unit within the prime minister’s department is better known by. PEMANDU is the government agency that created and is now steering the ETP.

2
 The ETP calls for 131 entry point projects (EPPs) within 12 National Key Economic Areas (NKEAs), which will pour RM1.4 trillion worth of investment into the economy and create 3.3 million new jobs by 2020.

3
 Quote from ETP Roadmap Report. Page 16.

4
 More than 40 with the lead Ministers and Prime Minister and more than 600 with key government agencies such as Bank Negara. Source: ETP Roadmap Report. Page 16.

5
 Karambunai Corp Bhd responded as such on 24 Sept 2010 to a query from Bursa Malaysia. Available at http://www.karambunaicorp.com/Announcement/Announcement20100924.pdf. Retrieved on 18 Jan 2012.

6
 Selection of the NKEAs pre-dated the NKEA labs that selected the EPPs, of course. But the NKEA selection process was similar. Much was made of the private sector participation in the process of selecting the NKEAs.

7
 Relevant Number: Protons are 53% cheaper in Saudi Arabia. Available at http://refsa.org/relevant-number/protons-price-is-53-cheaper-in-saudi-arabia/.

8
 Yamin Wong is editor of the Cars, Bikes, Trucks (CBT) supplement of the New Sunday Times. Do read his excellent editorial Mystery of the missing auto sector. First published on 26 Sept 2010. Now available online at http://cbt.com.my/100924/mystery-missing-auto-sector. Retrieved on 31 Jan 2011.

9
 Tricubes CEO Khairun Zainal had admitted that the project was a ‘financial lifeline’ for the company. This company had also made ‘typo errors’ in its 2011 annual report. The ‘typos’ showed the company lost just RM7.3 million in the financial year ended 31 Mar 2011, whereas the actual loss was RM17.2 million. Source: Tricubes says losses higher last year, blames typos. Yow Hong Chieh, Malaysian Insider, 29 Dec 2011.

********

About this series

Critics of PEMANDU and the ETP thus far have tended to focus on the expensive costs incurred by PEMANDU and its consultants, accusations of style prevailing over substance, the execution of specific projects (such as the MRT and 1 Malaysia email) and its apparently lofty, unrealistic targets.

We think these issues can be further debated, but these questions ultimately boil down to PEMANDU’s raison d’être.  PEMANDU is already a fait accompli. Debating its existence serves no useful purpose at this point.

Instead, we evaluate PEMANDU and the ETP on its own terms by looking at the goals, plans and targets outlined in the ETP Roadmap document. Doing so facilitates constructive debate as it uses the same framework which PEMANDU has chosen to work within.

In that vein, and in keeping with the spirit of the alphabet soup of NKEAs, NKRAs, SRIs, EPPs, GNI surrounding the entire GTP, we evaluate PEMANDU and the ETP on its DEEDS:

Data transparency – the ease with which an independent analyst can evaluate the figures relevant to the ETP and its targets;

Execution – the progress, or lack thereof, of announced EPPs (Entry Point Projects);

Enterprise – whether the target of stimulating private investment is being achieved. The ETP aims for a 92:8 split between private and public investments;

Distribution – the distribution of EPPs across the NKEAs (National Key Economic Areas), which shows whether a healthy balance of projects is being maintained; and

Socio-economic impact – an evaluation of the main beneficiaries of the economic activities generated by the EPPs.

The story so far

Part 1,
Let’s evaluate PEMANDU on its DEEDS
, introduced our evaluation framework.

Part 2,
We won’t really be twice as rich in 2020
, found us declaring “It does not compute!” PEMANDU’s  target is to double nominal income per capita to RM48,000 by 2020. But using its forecasts for income and population growth, and inflation, the target should be RM54,145, not RM48,000. Can this ‘roadmap to transformation’ be trusted when the highly-paid PEMANDU team and its costly consultants cannot even get the basic math right?

Part 3(i),
PEMANDU strengthens the ‘know-who’ cancer
, focuses on the practice of taking credit for pre-existing projects and PEMANDU’s role in cutting red tape.  PEMANDU is institutionalising the role of middleman if it cuts red tape only for EPPs. If long-term policy changes are not made, Malaysian innovation, creativity and productivity will continue to lag. It does not matter how good your product or idea is, or how efficiently you can make it, it depends on who you know to get it through the system.

Note on PEMANDU’s response

Upon hearing that we were writing an evaluation of the ETP, the communications team at PEMANDU kindly arranged interviews with a Director from the Minister’s Office who is also the Director of the Oil, Gas and Energy & Financial Services NKEAs, the Director of the Wholesale and Retail (W&R) NKEA and the Assistant Director of the Tourism NKEA. We are grateful for these interviews and will include clarification points from these interviews in our evaluation. These interviews were recorded by the ETP communications team and we hope that they would be made available online for public access.

About the authors

Visiting contributor Dr Ong Kian Ming holds a PhD in Political Science from Duke University and Economics degrees from the University of Cambridge and the London School of Economics. He is attached to UCSI University, which has been named as the project owner of two Entry Point Projects (EPPs). To avoid any potential conflict of interest, he will not make references to or analyse these two EPPs. He can be reached at
[email protected]
.

REFSA (Research for Social Advancement) Executive Director Teh Chi-Chang holds a first class degree in Accounting & Financial Analysis from the University of Warwick, an MBA from the University of Cambridge and the CFA (Chartered Financial Analyst) charter. Prior to joining REFSA, he headed highly-regarded investment research teams covering Malaysia, and was himself highly-ranked as an analyst. He can be reached at
[email protected]
.

Help REFSA do more!

REFSA is a not-for-profit research institute that provides relevant and reliable information on social, economic and political issues affecting Malaysians. We aim to promote open and constructive discussions that result in effective policies to address these issues.

REFSA depends primarily on donations to fund its operations. Research such as this consumes much time, expertise and effort. Please contribute if you share our vision for a better Malaysia and support our commitment to impartial, constructive analysis. Donations can be:

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Other Information

The information in this report has been obtained from and is based upon sources that are believed to be reliable but no guarantee is made as to accuracy and completeness.

                This entry was posted on Wednesday, 8 February 2012, 3:25 pm and is filed under
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Another rural school mishap — but who cares?

— Andrew Aeria

The Malaysian Insider

Feb 08, 2012

FEB 8 — On the night of January 31, 18 young children, all students of a rural boarding school, SK Punan Ba in Sarawak’s Belaga district, were injured when their dilapidated wooden hostel (built in 1983) collapsed on them. According to the school’s headmaster, the “ramshackle wooden hostel” had been earmarked for renovation (see Borneo Post report).

Instead, for lack of repairs, five primary schoolgirls suffered “serious injuries” while 13 others had “minor fractures”. Luckily, there were no fatalities reported — although fatalities or permanent paralysis may still occur if any of the five ‘seriously injured’ schoolgirls do not respond well to medical treatment.

For those who do not understand medical parlance, a “serious injury” refers to the fact that the patient is bedridden after an accident and is incapable of walking. For those amongst us who have suffered “minor fractures”, we would all understand how painful, difficult and inconvenient an experience that can be. What more if the person is a child who is living in a rural and underfunded boarding school far away from family and loved ones, most of whom are poor and marginalised.

School buildings collapse and burn down regularly in Sarawak and Sabah owing to neglect and for lack of urgent maintenance funds.

Yet, the news of this accident only emerged on the front pages of the Borneo Post, a local Sarawak English daily, on February 4. Instead of focusing on the sad plight of the schoolchildren and their recovery; instead of engaging politicians and bureaucrats by demanding concrete measures to ensure that such accidents do not recur, the newspaper focused on the visit of local luminaries, MP Billy Abit Joo (Hulu Rejang), Kapit Resident Dahim Nadot and Belaga District Education Officer Nelson @ Milon Saing to the school.

According to the news report, the three visited the school last Thursday to see for themselves the extent of damage. The newspaper also carried a front page photo of the trio looking upon the accident site, presumably to showcase “how deeply concerned” they were.

To this end, the news report also highlighted that Hulu Rajang MP Billy Abit Joo handed over a RM10,000 grant to the school’s Parent-Teacher Association to carry out repair work in the school. He was quoted as having said, “I am saddened by what had happened. Safety of the pupils should always be given priority. I hope such an incident will not happen again in future.”

Yeah, right! Ho-hum…

What’s the use of Billy Abit applying a paltry RM10,000 plaster on a long festering wound? He has been MP of Hulu Rajang for 22 years now. And still the numerous rural schools within his constituency continue to be badly neglected and lack maintenance funds. Why has he not done more to ensure that school buildings and facilities in his constituency are safe and secure for rural schoolchildren?

Indeed, considering that this school building collapse is only another mishap in a long litany of many others in Sabah and Sarawak that have succumbed to collapse and to fires, why has the government not done anything significant to ensure that our rural children get to live and study in safe and secure school buildings?

Or is this school collapse just another case of poor, rural students not being important enough in our high-level national development agendas?

Perhaps if a building had collapsed on MP Billy Abit Joo (Hulu Rejang), Kapit Resident Dahim Nadot and Belaga District Education Officer Nelson @ Milon Saing or better still on the federal minister of Education during a previous official visit to a rural school in Sabah or Sarawak, things would have been different. Comprehensive remedial measures would certainly have been implemented a long time ago and the poor 18 children would probably not have suffered their unfortunate fate.

Sarawak’s budget has earmarked RM3.3 billion as development expenditure for 2012. Our federal budget has earmarked RM51.2 billion as total development expenditure for 2012. And how much are we allocating for rural school renovations and maintenance?

Sarawak’s new state legislative assembly building cost a cool RM296.5 million. But we cannot even spend a few million ringgit repairing all our ramshackle rural schools and boarding facilities in Sarawak?

Cow projects in Malaysia get funded up to the tune of RM250 million. But we cannot earmark urgent and adequate funds to ensure that all our rural schools are made safe for our children once and for all?

Don’t our rural schoolchildren in Sarawak and Sabah deserve at least as much as our cows?

Or are all our hot-shot, media-loving politicians and senior bureaucrats just too cow-brained to realise this? — aliran.com

                This entry was posted on Wednesday, 8 February 2012, 11:49 am and is filed under
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Berikan kepercayaan kepada rakyat, bukan sebaliknya!

— Sakmongkol AK47

The Malaysian Insider

Feb 08, 2012

8 FEB — Nampak nya, bila PM Najib menyeru kaum India mempercayai nya, dia sudah lupa kepada slogan dia sendiri. Suatu ketika dahulu, semasa berkobar kobar semangat liberalism dan terlalu taksub untuk meyakinkan dunia barat, PM Najib telah berkata bahawa zaman dimana pemerintah lebih tahu segala nya sudah berakhir. The age of government knows best is over. Translated, it also means, the age of big brotherism is over.

Tapi kita tahu, PM Najib kadang-kadang tidak tahu apa yang sudah diucapkan. Maklum sahajalah, sebahagian besar ucapan mengenai dasar-dasar negara, di sediakan oleh con-sultans. Slogan itu sedap di dengar, tapi perlaksanaan nya tidak ada.

Dan baru-baru ini, kita dengar PM Najib berkata perbelanjaan keatas kebajikan rakyat akan memufliskan negara. Adakah bantuan kepada rakyat yang susah, bayaran melalui jabatan kebajikan masyarakat misalnya, akan memiskinkan negara? Kenyataan ini amat sukar di terima memandangkan dalam masa 10 tahun (2000-2009) sebanyak satu trillion atau 1,000 billion telah hilang dari negara akibat pemindahan wang ke luar negara secara haram! Bayangkan jika jumlah tersebut di aplikasikan kepada kebajikan masyarakat! Maka yang sebetulnya membengkrapkan negara ini ialah rasuah dan pemindahan wang secara haram.

Pemindahan wang secara haram ini seperti nama nya, ialah pemindahan wang yang di perolehi secara rasuah atau haram kedalam akaun pemilik nya di luar negara. Tentu ada cara nya, kerajaan yang jujur mahu mendapatkan wang ini.

Slogan zaman kerajaan tahu segala nya sudah berakhir ketika di ucapkan menimbulkan perasaan gembira di kalangan rakyat. Apakah ertinya slogan itu bila di terjemah dengan jujur? Apabila di terjemah, slogan itu bermaksud, segala inisiatif bermula dari rakyat bukan dari pemimpin. Ertinya, PM Najib mahu memindahkan kuasa kepada rakyat. Tetapi itu semua untuk menyedapkan telinga.

Dari dulu, sekarang dan selama nya, Umno tidak akan memindahkan kuasa kepada rakyat. Kepada Umno, rakyat bukan nya tahu apa mereka mahu. Kerajaan lah yang super tahu. Sebab itu PM Najib kata percaya sama saya. Lu tolong gua, gua tolong lu. Beri saya nambikei, tembikai atau apa pun- maksud sebenar yang mahu Najib katakan ialah, kerajaan tahu segala nya. Itu sebab, caya sama gua.

Tapi, bila PM Najib berkata percaya pada saya, he has got it in reverse. Yang patut di sampaikan kepada PM Najib ialah, percayalah kepada rakyat, bukan sebaliknya. Jadi kita ulang — PM Najib, percayalah kepada rakyat. Kita tahu apa yang mesti di lakukan.

Tidak pula kita dengar PM Najib kata percaya kepada Umno. Dia hanya sebut percaya pada saya. Mungkinkah Presiden Umno pun tidak percaya kepada parti nya sendiri. Malang nya, inilah yang terjadi kepada Umno. Ia sebuah parti yang tidak di percayai dan tidak boleh di percayai.

Bagaimana rakyat mahu percaya kepada Umno jika Umno sendiri tidak yakin kepada rakyat? Bagaimana orang Melayu mahu yakin kepada Umno jika Umno tidak mempercayai orang Melayu? Cuba kita tanya — kepada siapakah Umno mempertaruhkan masa depan nya? Kepada orang Melayu atau kepada ahli parti yang seramai tiga juta itu?

Umno sebetulnya tidak mewakili orang Melayu. Yang di wakili oleh Umno ialah orang Melayu terpilih dan Melayu yang berkepentingan. Malahan, orang Melayu yang berada di luar Umno tidak di anggap Melayu oleh Umno. Siapakah Umno yang merasakan diri nya, berhak mendefinisikan siapa Melayu dan tidak Melayu? Bahkan, jika mahu di kira, ramai orang Melayu yang menyifatkan Najib Razak dan Hishamudin Hussein Onn tidak cukup Melayu. Mereka Melayu, tapi quotient Melayu mereka kurang.

Jangan lah kita percaya sangat apabila PM Najib berkata dia insaf dan merasakan apa yang RAKYAT rasakan. Najib mula jadi Melayu bila dia menggantikan Tun Razak sebagai ahli parlimen Pekan dalam tahun 1976.

Lihatlah kepada Umno wahai bangsa Melayu. Umno adalah parti yang mempertaruhkan masa depan nya kepada majority ahli nya yang berjumlah tiga juta itu. itu pun kesetiaan tiga juta ahli nya di perolehi melalui ugutan dan rasuah dan bentuk-bentuk pujukan yang lain. Umno di dominasi oleh golongan tender-preneur bukan oleh penyokong yang meyakini perjuangan Umno.

Parti yang menaruhkan masa depan nya diatas sogokan dan ugutan dan bukan diatas perjuangan untuk satu SERUAN, tidak akan bertahan lama. Umno ada jasad tetapi tidak ada roh. Ini ancaman terbesar kepada Umno.

Orang Melayu tidak ada masa depan dengan parti politik macam Umno hari ini. — sakmongkol.blogspot.com

* Sakmongkol AK47 is the nom de plume of Datuk Mohd Ariff Sabri Abdul Aziz. He was Pulau Manis assemblyman (2004-2008).

                This entry was posted on Wednesday, 8 February 2012, 10:34 pm and is filed under
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Malaysian health reform socioeconomics (Part 2)

— Dr David KL Quek

The Malaysian Insider

Feb 08, 2012

FEB 8 — 1 Care health reform phases

In the 1 Care Health Reform plan, there are four proposed phases of transformation that could take anything from 10 to 15 years (according to officials), depending on the uptake of the various phases and programmes, as well as its implementation progress.

Importantly, the Health Ministry increasingly understands that it would require general public acceptance, as well as significant consensus and (if possible) seamless buy-in from as many stakeholders as possible.

There is recognition that if the public fails to accept this in toto or in part, then there might be need to re-tweak or re-design certain aspects of the reform plans. Just how much the bureaucrats or our political masters are willing to change and adapt remains to be seen.

Therefore, it is crucial, indeed essential, that the public and interested stakeholders take an active role in providing enough input to help make this reform the one that they want. We should not simply accept a top-down programme designed by bureaucrats, and selectively enacted by policy makers. Why? Because, it would be disastrous if this reform fails or runs into the usual gaffes, just a few years down the line. Health care is simply too unforgiving and vital to fail or be subject to arbitrary social experimentation, no matter how good the intentions!

The current reform of the British National Health Service has almost run aground on several gridlocks and are now almost back to where it began just a year or so ago, after it was forcibly implemented against the bulwark of criticisms from several professional bodies, including doctors groups, healthcare workers and even business concerns. Chapter 17 discusses this debate in greater detail.

In the 1990s, Hilary Clinton and Newt Gingrich tried as a bipartisan Congress-Senate committee to radically reform the US health system, and this was totally rejected despite a six-year effort of intense debates and consultations. Even the Obamacare health reform was passed after severe truncations and whittling down of its programs and reach. There are still challenges, which remain to thwart its full if stuttering implementation.

Thus, reforming something so fundamental as healthcare is not something that any government can simply impose without feeling the pulse of civilian or partisan backlash, unless this can be made as consensually acceptable as possible, with as little disruptions or perceived inequities as possible.

Clearly, too, any reform or change will not be able to win over everyone or every dissenter. But at least, the majority must be able to accept, to believe in and buy into the system so transformed.

Two-way public consultations are crucial

So what about our own proposed health reform? Have there been enough high-level consultations and public input? There have been consultative meetings through various technical working groups (TWGs) involving an array of invited stakeholders, including the MMA, GPs, universities, private hospital and insurance groups, economic panning unit officials, etc.

However, the input into these TWGs appears fragmented and somewhat tailored to narrowly focused policy-directed micro-minutiae goals — the consultative groups are supposed to simply address the practical implications where they could be foreseen according to such objectives. By the way, almost all the TWG participants have to sign, under the Official Secrets Act (OSA), not to divulge these secrets on pain of prosecution!

The question, then, is if this sort of consultation reciprocal and two-way, or are they simply top-down exercises to assuage the “need” for paper consensus?

Most if not all these consultative meetings take place during working hours only, where Health Ministry officials could of course participate full time. But here is the crunch. Not many other stakeholders have sufficient manpower and knowledgeable experts or representatives who could attend such important meetings for weeks on end, and also over extended periods. Of course, one can argue that if parties are interested enough, they should sacrifice for the sake of the nation on something so important. But in reality this is easier said than done.

However, the main bone of contention is the sort of dialogue or consultation that these technical working groups (TWGs) address. Most participants lament the fact that the policy ideas and frameworks have already been fixed, and that participants are simply there to be merely made to understand the technical issues involved, and to tweak the minutiae of forecasted plans. There is little or no leeway to address disagreements and/or to seek alternative views in terms of policy direction or the best way forward—in other words, there is little tolerance for any dissent or variation.

Participating delegates are simply ushered along trajectories of planned reform pathways, which are then rubber-stamped as having been party to these so-called consultations! This is one major reason, why many invited groups have stopped participating in earnest or even wanting to come forwards to contribute, when these potential differing viewpoints are simply ignored or brushed aside, or considered irrelevant, by the officials in charge…

So, despite earlier high expectations, the difficulty is in getting enough interested parties and participants to consistently come forward to study and represent the vested groups sufficiently, to meaningfully address all the issues and implications of these crucial public consultations. So it is arguable if this current approach is an adequately thorough or fair process that is intended for deciding and planning what is best for the nation!

To cap the limitations of such discourses, there is also that (OSA) that participants have to comply with! With something to hugely critical, how can this be secretive and not be freely shared just because, these have not been cast in stone yet, as rationalized by some health officials, when complaints were made?

The cost containment argument does not quite compute…

But let’s get to the bottom of the government’s main contention that our health system is unsustainable. Is it really? The government’s main argument for this drastic health reform is that our health care costs have been escalating beyond its capacity to control and possibly to afford. What is interesting is that over the past two to three decades, the government’s contribution to healthcare budget has not significantly wavered from its customary two to 2.2 per cent of the GDP; the chunk of it all being utilised for the public healthcare sector.

The private sector has been encouraged to grow and develop as a complementary private sector financing initiative (PFI), but like all business or commercial enterprises, this model fosters escalating costs, albeit towards distributing the healthcare cost to those who could afford to contribute or pay more for themselves.

No one sets up any business venture to lose money; all are in it for personal or corporate gain. But by offering a modicum of perhaps more personalised or more luxurious healthcare, these private health centres provide outlets for those who desire just such an experience—the better-off can choose to pay more to receive “more” arguably.

Thus, this appears to be a form of unspoken tariff on the rich, to allow market forces and the better-off to choose and to cross-subsidise their own healthcare cost within their own means and ability-to-pay, while the government provides back up and safety net for the poor and the less endowed.

Over the years, however, the quantum from Malaysia’s general government revenues (GGR) has changed very little, while medical technology and newer therapies have leapt to new heights of sophistication and costs. This inevitably triggers greater public demand for higher and better quality medical care and treatment—everyone wants to live longer, and suffer less, even if these are crippling ailments, which were once considered terminal or incurable…

In large, the private sector growth has overtaken the slack public sector in terms of modernization of health services, which explains the reversal of private-public expenditure profiles from 2004 onwards; the private sector expenditure now tops 55 per cent of the Malaysian total health expenditure (TEH).

This also, unfortunately, serves as powerful push factor for the public sector to also rise up in tandem to catch up with the modernization and upgrading of their services—increased spending on facilities, diagnostic technologies and demanded therapies—e.g. MRIs, CT scanners, latest medical, surgical and/or radio-therapeutic techniques and expertise, including higher manpower and skills development/training and emoluments!

Officials have projected that by 2020, our health care bill could top RM90 billion (from the current RM35 billion) and that out-of-pocket payments would be around 48 per cent. But this is a theoretical assumption that the trajectory of healthcare cost continues as it has, with no major change or shift from either the government sector allocation or from private sector growth.

Health economists dislike disproportionate out-of-pocket (OOP) payment for medical care, because this reflects underlying disparity in the general public gaining or affording access to much-needed health care. High OOP payment for healthcare is believed to accelerate inequity trends and aggravate risks for medical bankruptcies. But this is seen predominantly in poorer third world countries than in more successful nations such as Singapore, Sri Lanka or even Vietnam, where OOP payments regularly exceed 50 or even 70 percent of the TEH. Malaysia is considered favourably, too, despite its OOP spending being around 40 per cent of TEH.

Our public health sector serves our public well

Another issue is the current strategy where much of the public sector services are so heavily subsidised, that there is worry whether there could be any further increased allocation from the government coffers. This is particularly relevant because our government is grappling with limited success to reduce its national budget deficit against pressing and competing demands. Healthcare spending has unfortunately and misguidedly been put on the focus point for reduced government “subsidy”.

As it stands, only a paltry two per cent is recovered from all the spending in the public health sector. This lack of copayment returns on the part of public users of these services has made some of our policy makers wonder if this is the right direction of the public health sector, which has been trying to modernise and strengthen, and perhaps become more cost-effective and financially independent—some officials would like to make this public sector more competitive as a corporate body, hence the not unwarranted public or NGO fears of privatisation or corporatisation!

However, this consistent lack of capacity of public sector patients to contribute back the costs of the services received, actually underscores the viewpoint that most Malaysians who utilise these services do so because their access choice is largely determined by their inability-to-pay otherwise, rather than their wishing to game the system unfairly! Most, if not all, could not afford alternative private care, otherwise!

Simply put, people use these public sector health facilities because these are convenient and are almost free despite the inconveniences, the wait times, the irregular access to a consistent healthcare provider or doctor, the cheaper generic medications, etc. This is not to imply that the services provided by the public sector are in anyway inferior or substandard. But the reality is that this service is arguably not the preferred one if they could afford otherwise. This explains why some 65 per cent of our Malaysian public across all ethnic or social groups use private general practitioner (GP) services nationwide — because these are more attentive, more personal, still relatively affordable, and preferred!

In Malaysia currently, it is estimated that our less well-off citizens form some 40 per cent of the population. However, this less well-endowed group continues to be able to gain access to public sector services without suffering the plight of having to stay away due to cost constraints — this is indeed one of our great strengths. (Conversely, this is a common problem among the poor worldwide where no universal access to healthcare is guaranteed.)

Our health officials acknowledge that this easily accessible (and nearly free) public sector health service is one critical aspect of the public’s expectation: That this is precisely the social safety net that it should deliver and not to curtail or eradicate in the guise of subsidy reduction! Healthcare is a fundamental societal expectation and a right (not a dispensable luxury!), and enlightened governments should allocate more rather than less toward this social good. The public expects this, and no less!

Thus, the public in general expects that such a system be continued as justifiable social services for citizens, taxpayers and the needy of the country. Indeed, most people, even if they do not now use these public sector services, feel that the government has a fiduciary duty to provide such healthcare services as mandatory back-up or safety net alternatives, even if only two per cent are recovered for all the public sector expenditure by the government.

The very fact that the almost fully-subsidised public sector services cater to the predominantly poor (and therefore, non-taxpaying citizens), makes this an inherent and natural cross-subsidy, which tends toward progressive equity in health care practice and financing.

There is, at present, no other simpler way for this to be separately reimbursed for this group of people who already do not contribute sufficiently to SOCSO, EPF, and are not eligible for or exempt from taxation. Thus, higher-earning taxpayers are already cross-subsidising this group of the poor via general government revenue allocations; while they (the better-off) still have a choice to access the preferred private sector either out-of-pocket or through some co-payment from third party payment mechanisms, including the much maligned health insurance!

Thus, our public health sector has an already inbuilt pro-poor system, which renders this social equity mechanism more progressive. This is certainly in the correct direction. There is public expectation that increase and not decrease in the quantum of allocation of government funds (general government revenues (GGR) from indirect or direct taxes) toward healthcare, is the preferred approach as part of the social services mandate of government.

Moreover, there is great reluctance on the part of the public of having to contribute more in terms of direct taxes (mandatory health insurance or any other form of goods and services tax), which generally affect the poor more than the better-off.

Proportionality of personal and individual taxes tend to affect the poor more because of their lower quantum of limited or no disposable or discretionary income, outside the realm of bare minimum basic livelihood essentials. The poor has a disproportionate share of indebtedness with little or no spare cash for anything else!

After taking care of livelihood and family maintenance necessities, the poor has hardly any excess or even no disposable income. Therefore, any further additional or mandatory household or personal tax/contribution would bite lopsidedly and painfully into these already-meagre funds. This leads to the concept of “ability-to-pay” considerations when it comes to economic activity, particularly relevant when it concerns health care.

* This article is the second in a five-part series. Part 1 is available
here
.

* Dr David Quek is past-president of the Malaysian Medical Association, but the opinions expressed are strictly his own and does not reflect those of the MMA.

                This entry was posted on Wednesday, 8 February 2012, 12:06 pm and is filed under
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The 1 ‘S’Care scheme

— The Black Cactus

The Malaysian Insider

Feb 08, 2012

FEB 8 — In the last few weeks, there has been immense debate on the proposed national health scheme dubbed 1 Care in both the internet and the mainstream media. A collective conclusion shared by both the public and the very professionals alike (who play a major role in the system) is the uncanny ability to fully comprehend the confusing entity which remains an uncertainty till today.

This commentary was written to achieve the following objectives

1. To help the public understand why this system was proposed and what led to the genesis of this scheme;

2. If possible, to pressure the government to be more transparent in providing information on the 1 Care scheme to allay fears among the general public; and

3. To help the layperson understand the unaddressed policy issues but highly crucial perspectives surrounding the 1 Care scheme

First, it would be wise to have a quick update on the prevailing Malaysian health care system so that it would help shine some light as to why there is a sudden accelerated interest to bring the 1 Care scheme into an imminent reality.

The Malaysian health care scenario

The Malaysian health care system has often been hailed globally for its ability to endorse a sustainable health policy that reflects an outstanding and equitable health status at a relatively low economic burden.

By allocating just three per cent of its GDP to health care (majority of industrialised countries invest rough about six per cent, with the exception of the United States, which devotes 16 per cent), data compiled by World Health Organization shows that the performance of the Malaysian health system is, in fact, highly efficient.

This is evidenced by the “Health Adjusted Life Expectancy (HALE)” at birth indicator, which categorises Malaysia as equal to most industrialised countries, at 63 years.

However, the complexity of the system has also brought in much uncertainty that has not only slowed down service delivery, but has been closely related to the gradual increase in economic burden.

In an effort to make health care accessible (and most importantly equal) to all fabrics of the society, the concept of Universal Health Care was formulated and adopted by most countries around the world including Malaysia.

The system attempts to finance the health benefits for all by a balance of tax revenues and medical insurance (mostly recommended by private health caregiver in Malaysia currently). This is imposed on employed, working class population. In Malaysia, much of the public medical fees are subsidised to a great extent from the much gained tax revenues.

It is important to note that the Malaysian Ministry Of Health only manages to recover three per cent of its total operating cost through fees collected at health care premises. The amount is strikingly lower than most payments made in most European health system (which employs the co-payment system where funds are partly subsidized by the government and the insurance premium paid by the patient). The average consultation at a token rate of RM1 at any primary care centre barely covers 1 per cent of the economic cost per visit.

The resulting non sustainable system calls for fiscal limitations and will eventually cause much financial loss due to:

  1. The spur of an unrealistic and unachievable demand for public health care;

  2. The operational costs to cover universal health care will surpass the government’s current fiscal capacity.

By understanding this, it comes as no surprise that the proposed 1 Care scheme is a platform designed to re-coup the wastages from a bleeding pre-existing ( but noble and functional if properly handled) health care system that is sub-optimally managed.

Like any other subsidised policies, the current health care system is resilient to any structural reform partly due to the lack of political will (where it is vital to appease voters by holding on to the unsustainable RM1 token fee and RM15-20 token fee paid at primary and specialist health clinics respectively) and the society itself whom have become so accustomed to enjoying cheap but scarce medical resources that has been perpetually vulnerable to potential abuse all these years.

The single most important question: Where is the information?

Unlike most countries that have proposed and implemented such a scheme, information on the mechanics and the policies enshrined in the health care scheme is widely available for public scrutiny. One could easily access any updates and knowledge on the health care scheme through the Ministry Of Health website of the respective countries.

The same cannot be said for the 1 Care system. The public, at large, have very patchy ideas on the health scheme without corroborative evidence from the Ministry Of Health. It would have been prudent, with all the disparate views available from all avenues of the mass media, to allay all concerns by allowing the public to peer into the workings of the proposed scheme or at least highlight the salient points that matters most to the average Malaysian. Efforts to make it an intellectual discourse by taking in question from the public would have been highly commendable.

Strangely, the documents or information regarding its modus operandi has remained elusive and is not available on the Ministry Of Health website (which is mandatory in most civil nations). The reason as to why this has been enshrouded in secrecy remains anyone’s best guess.

However, one could only speculate that perhaps the precise knowledge of the system is within the confines of a privileged few elites who are still, themselves, grappling reach a consensus on how to implement a scheme that is totally not viable given the current economic climate.

Hypothesized 1 Care scheme model

Care scheme as the utility towards managed care

With the escalating medical expenditure of the country, a cost containment approach has to be put in place to eradicate or replace an ailing healthcare system that burdens the economy. One such option would be the 1 Care scheme. Given the very sketchy information on how this would be implemented, one could only draw inferences from other similar healthcare systems.

Bearing that in mind, it would suffice to say that the scheme would promote the technique of “managed care” (by managed care organisations or MCOs) where the autonomy of patients is sacrificed and replaced by a predetermined set of rules.

These rules govern patient’s rights to which doctor, the type of care and the kind of medications he/she receives. Many of us are aware of this has been given much focus in the previous attempts to describe the proposed health system in the media.

This has, in the past, led to reprisals from the public dissatisfaction due to denial of care stemming from government legislation to tight labour rules that restricts the access one has to healthcare options. Employers would then offer private health care plans (which are private insurance plans) to fill in this vacuum so that employees could afford all available treatments. Ultimately (and to the contrary of cost containment), this incident would give rise to the ballooning of medical expenditure in the country.

Free treatment for all, really?

Unless the full blueprint is made public, one could only hypothesize the magnitude or the process of financing involved in the 1 Care scheme, which is the crux of understanding how the whole system functions.

The population might be divided up to two broad classes namely:

  1. The general public;

  2. Concessional patients (the ageing public, citizens below the poverty line, disabled/handicapped).

It will be compulsory for all working citizens of the general public, who have wages within the taxable bracket, to pay 10 per cent of their earnings as contribution necessary for the funding of the scheme.

Remember that this 10 per cent tax does not mean that one is entitled to the type of care, it is just a contribution that is used to pay the wages of the physicians and other miscellaneous expenses (purchase of new equipments or subsidising the concessional patients etc.). This will be collected as federal taxes.

Secondly, to be amenable to treatments within the system, the general public will have to take up an insurance policy (social health insurance). Treatments within this system will be closely regulated by MCOs which could mean that a patient might not be covered for a wide range of interventions (eg. optical surgeries, prosthesis, aesthetics, etc.).

One burning question: Is the scheme really free so that it provides universal healthcare in a similar vein to the current system? Will drugs be free now that payments have been made by contributing to taxes and insurance schemes? Read on carefully.

So much focus has been given to the taxable amount that we need to contribute but the society has become oblivious about other aspects of the mandatory payments that one has to make in order to get the full package of services available. In summary, this would be the likely formula for the 1 Care scheme:

Social health insurance (SHI) + General taxation + minimal Co-payments for a defined Benefits Package

The fundamentals of SHIs and general taxation have been explained in detail earlier. What are copayments and benefit packages that are also an inherent part of the formula though?

Of copayments, benefit packages and additional private health insurances

Copayments are payments that have to be made by patients when their treatment has exceeded the threshold tolerated by the health scheme. Thus, a patient has to fork out a certain amount of money once the treatment requires more financial assistance due to the nature of their illness.

Benefit packages seem define the type of insurance from which special group within the population will be stratified according to deserve exemption from payments or will have their treatments partially subsidised.

Extrapolating from the statement above, even the casual layperson would demand an explanation by posing several questions below:

  1. It was said that free treatment will be given to all. But what are these copayments, then?

  2. Will there be copayments for drugs? Is there a minimum pricing policy?

  3. Which class of society will be eligible to total subsidy and exempted from all payments?

  4. How will the general public gain access to other treatments that the SHI does not cover?

To minimise copayments, steps will be taken to provide cheap but “equally” good quality drugs or services determined by the MCOs. This is called the minimum pricing policy, a key policy issue that has been very much in the shadows since the planning of 1 Care policy.

MCOs will only allow more patient autonomy if they are willing to endure an additional cost by purchasing an additional private insurance. The results would be:

  1. Patients will now be provided with the added benefits which are not covered by the SHI policy;

  2. Patients will be able to then choose doctors and types of procedures (dental/optical/physiotherapy that was previously not available in the SHI scheme).

Rise in public health care burden secondary to rise in market demand

The trend of an increase in purchase of additional private health insurance will influence the increase in demand of services as a whole. With the access to an affordable yearly insurance premium, the growing population will have a lowered out-of-the pocket price to pay when seeking medical treatment. This will directly lead to the increase in market demand for health care services for the medical needy and indirectly cause the sudden surge of prices for medical services.

With the increase in slow increase in inflation rates in Malaysia (upward trend towards the level of 3.3 per cent in December 2011), larger spectrum of the working population would be pushed into the higher marginal tax brackets. This would often leave citizens with lesser disposal income for their utilization.

In line with this scenario, many tax payers would prefer out-of pocket medical expenses be paid before-tax ringgit than after-tax ringgit (which is subject to tax imposition) by purchasing health insurance. Thus, this will inexorably increase market demand and simultaneously increase prices of medical services, especially if it is poorly regulated and unprepared.

Reeling from the aftermath

Repercussions

Faced with rising medical expenditure, the federal government will be dogged by limited and painful options.

  1. Raise the 1 Care payroll tax and incomes taxes on the non age to sustain the failing 1 Care scheme;

  2. Necessitate higher premiums for 1 Care among the aged and increase their deductibles and copayments;

  3. Reduce payments to hospitals and physicians

The full brunt of the burden will be directed towards the public if the system goes awry. Physicians will opt out of the 1 Care scheme as their fees will be slashed to lower levels. Patients will then need to pay higher out of the pocket settlements to their doctors who are no longer under the 1 Care scheme.

The aged and the non-working class, who have little or minimum wage, will have to face a less forgiving reality that their benefits to subsidy will be greatly reduced.

The working population, with already rapidly diminishing disposal income will find it extremely difficult to come to terms with a scheme that requires them to be taxed higher and receive very little benefit from such health policy.

Recommendations

It is time that the government stepped up to the plate and educates the nation on their intentions behind the 1 Care Scheme. Let it not be a half baked policy reminiscent of the recent SBPA debacle (that still remains unresolved till this date) as the stakes are much greater and bigger calamity looms if the scheme is not reviewed with due diligence.

It would be pertinent, for the time being (while 1 Care scheme is being mulled upon), that the following recommendations be considered:

  1. Assess the agent status of the majority of practitioners (whether they are they are perfect or imperfect agents for the proposed health care system)?

  2. Take all steps possible, and in a transparent manner, to convince the nation regarding the relevance of the 1 Care Scheme.

Meanwhile and until it is acceptable to the public, minor tweaks or reforms could be made to the pre-existing healthcare system to make its function far superior than at present:

  1. The symbiotic relationship between health care provider and patients is strongly encouraged in the hopes that patients themselves could be an active participant (and agents of cost reduction) in the system;

  2. The reduction in over-reliance of services provided by the privatization of healthcare, thus curbing progressive increase in market prices by decreasing the percentage of the population who seek inexpensive medical treatment (due to insurance premiums and lower out-of-pocket payments), which could be prove to be economic vicious cycle;

  3. Corporatisation of health care services (rather than a full change in the health care system) permits better operations management and greater accountability of a highly complex organization such as the primary health care system;

  4. Careful and gradual integration of new information technology advancements to the pre existing service delivery system (e-mail consultation for example) which could ultimately reduce cost and lead times.

                This entry was posted on Wednesday, 8 February 2012, 8:05 pm and is filed under
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The road to Malaysia is sometimes paved with grammatical errors

— Farish A. Noor

The Malaysian Insider

Feb 07, 2012

FEB 7 — There are times when I can only assume that Malaysians have so much free time on their hands that they don’t know what to do with it. Today, as I was marking my students’ book reviews, I chanced upon an item on Facebook that caught my attention: A minor kerfuffle had erupted thanks to a naive and well-meaning, though poorly executed, attempt at political correctness and inclusivity. The JKMM Facebook page had announced a Happy Thaipusam, but to Buddhists instead of Hindus. Almost immediately scores of irate Malaysians wrote on the page, accusing the JKMM FB page administrators of being stupid and insensitive.

Now allow me to contribute my two cents’ worth here (I’m paid in Singaporean dollars now, so my two cents are worth five sen ok, don’t play-play … )

I find it difficult, if not impossible, to believe that anyone at the offices of the JKMM would deliberately set out to insult Hindus on the page of the JKMM. That would be so insanely counter-productive as to beggar belief. True there might be racists anywhere and everywhere (even in academia) but they seldom use official channels to insult others, what more in such a case where anyone responsible can be tracked down and eventually identified.

I can only assume that this was an unfortunate and embarrassing instance of well-meaning individuals treading on deep water, and perhaps the poor fellow got out of his/her depth in this instance. Look, for heaven’s sake, it’s not as if the political temperature of the country was not hot enough at this point, can we not put things into context. The statement was, after all, wishing people Happy Thaipusam — though in this case, it was being wished upon the wrong confessional community. At worse, it was an embarrassing thing to do which could be easily rectified with a simple explanation and/or apology.

But this has made me ask myself another related question, about our sensitivities and where they may lie. Recall that in the late 1960s another well-meaning Malay-Muslim politician had himself photographed in a Mandarin costume and his wife in a cheongsam, that was then affixed on a Chinese New Year card and sent out to constituents. It was also a well-intentioned gesture, done presumably in the spirit of goodwill to fellow Malaysians. There was nothing that compelled the Malay politician to dress in Mandarin garb. Heck, there was nothing that compelled him to even wish his Chinese constituents a Happy Chinese New Year.

But as a result of this act, he was condemned by several quarters, including those who accused him of being a ‘race traitor’ etc etc. (You know the script by now)

It just shows that sometimes people blunder though they mean well. Over the past 10 years, I’ve grown rather tired and jaded with this country, and fed up with Malaysians who don’t want to look at the real geo-strategic and macro economic picture, to see that we are standing on the precipice of a serious economic and political crisis across all of Asia. Perhaps the reaction to the JKMM posting is symptomatic of how Malaysians are now on the edge, or have been pushed to the brink by the pyrotechnics we see in the political discourse of our country. But this is, after all, OUR nation — warts and all, and if some of us blunder, we need to rise above it and place things in context. At the very worse all that can be said about the JKMM posting was that it was misdirected. It was not racist. It was not inflammatory. It was not hate-laced with threats to anyone.

As I grow older and my eyesight fails me, my blunders grow in number, frequency and proportion too. (If you don’t believe me, go ask my long-suffering students).

If this was a case of an official making a mistake because of how he was taught (or not taught) about cultural and religious differences in school; then let us deal with something concrete like the teaching of multiculturalism and religious pluralism in our curriculum instead. But for heaven’s sake, my fellow Malaysians — (and I don’t believe I’m using phrases like this from teen-speak) — do chill out. We have enough demagogues and hate-mongers in our midst, let us deal with some real problems, one nuisance at a time.

* Dr Farish A. Noor is a Senior Fellow at the Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.

                This entry was posted on Wednesday, 8 February 2012, 11:57 am and is filed under
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Umno’s right turn

— Liew Chin Tong

Rocket/The Malaysian Insider

Feb 07, 2012

FEB 7 — As I walked from my hotel room to a meeting in Port Dickson in July 2005, I remember holding a newspaper with a photo of Hishammuddin Hussein brandishing a keris on its cover. At that moment, I knew Umno was kissing goodbye to its non-Malay support. (For reference, see the first part of this
article here
.)

Indeed, on hindsight, it was the pivotal moment of the decade: Umno had turned to the right permanently while the then-Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi lost control over his reform agenda. The demise of Abdullah’s premiership, arguably Umno’s last chance to reform, began in July 2005.

Today, unless Prime Minister Najib Razak can stare down the right wing of his party as effectively as Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s Vision 2020 grand compromise and turn the clock back by seven years to restore its centrist credential, the events of July 2005 will culminate in Umno and Barisan Nasional’s eventual electoral collapse.

As a reminder to Najib, his great leader Mahathir painfully discovered in the 1990 general election that the 1970s assumption that Umno could win 70 per cent of Malay support was no longer tenable. Malays in general have received better education and exposure, hence they have become more politically sophisticated.

The high rate of urbanisation among the Malays also pulls the rug from under the feet of Umno, the rural machinery party par excellent.

Umno’s Malay base has been further eroded by the ever-ready availability of popular alternative Malay leadership in the forms of a revived PAS and Semangat 46 in the 1990s and Anwar Ibrahim since his sacking in 1998.

It was the non-Malay middle class which Mahathir won over through his Vision 2020 grand compromise that sustained Umno and BN in power from February 1991 to July 2005.

But why was Umno so foolishly turning right at its general assembly in July 2005?

The reasons why

After having been in power for 21 months since October 31, 2003, the novelty factor of the Abdullah premiership waned and his leadership weaknesses became too glaring.

Abdullah’s all-talk-no-show attributes didn’t help. Making it worse, from the point of view of the Umnoputra rentiers, were the subjects he chose to talk about.

Abdullah fired his first policy salvo in the “First-world Infrastructure, Third-world Mentality” speech at the Oxbridge Society in March 2003 when he was acting prime minister during Mahathir’s two-month absence, foreshadowing his key priorities, among others, doing away with the government-driven construction craze, paring down fiscal deficits, and the anti-corruption drive.

As prime minister, Abdullah cancelled several of Mahathir’s pet projects and put most spending commitments under review. The gravy train for many suddenly stopped. It doesn’t help that some of the projects were allegedly revived with the intervention of “the Fourth Floor boys” — the office of Abdullah’s young advisers in Putrajaya.

“The hardest thing I’ve had to do as prime minister so far is to reduce the budget deficit,” he said at the first anniversary of his premiership.

Abdullah told the audience at the Harvard Club on May 5, 2005 that “the economy has been used for government pump-priming since 1998 and so the decision to reduce the budget deficit was, for many, like taking away a comforting source of income”.

He was aware that, for the rentier class, there was a “general feeling that things are not moving as fast as they were before” while those who wanted to see genuine reform were “growing impatient to see various things happen”.

Abdullah asked for patience. “I am committed to seeing through my policies, strategies and promises to fruition. I am not only a man of intentions, I am also a man of deeds. I am not one for display or fanfare or harsh words, so perhaps I don’t give away many signs, but that is an issue of style, not substance.”

Mahathir’s attacks

One of those who lost their patience with Abdullah was Mahathir. Rumours of Mahathir airing his frustration privately were quite widespread from the second half of 2004, especially after the release of Anwar Ibrahim on September 2, 2004.

But Mahathir only launched his public attack on the Abdullah administration in late May 2005 by training his gun on his former loyalist Rafidah Aziz over the issue of approved permits (AP) for imported cars. The issue dominated the public domain for months.

Mahathir became the focal point of dissent among Umno rentiers while Abdullah’s reformist credential was tainted, finding himself between a rock and a hard place. Mahathir crossed the line to attack Abdullah personally a year later.

At the same time, there was a lot of hype surrounding the Ninth Malaysia Plan, which would be released in the following year. Abdullah was more or less postponing all decisions in the name of the plan. The rentier class was eager to have a slice of the pie and thus was eager to use the Umno general assembly to make a point.

Abdullah’s presidential speech on Thursday, July 21, 2005 continued his line of thought since 2003 that “the government cannot play the role of Santa Claus, perpetually handing out gifts. Contractors should have taken this as a signal to diversify to other sectors”.

According to Abdullah, “in 1992, there were only 2,049 Bumiputera contractors. By 2005, the figure had reached 46,000 — an increase exceeding 2,000 (two thousand) per cent in 13 years. Of these, more than 42,000 were registered as Class F contractors.

“Almost all these contractors expected government contracts. There are 63,000 contractors of all classes in a nation of 25 million. This equals to one contractor for every 350 Malaysians. In comparison, Japan, whose contractors participate successfully in international tenders, has a ratio of only one contractor to 10,000.”

It was too late. No one in Umno was interested in Abdullah’s edicts and those outside the party had lost faith in Abdullah’s reform agenda.

Hishammuddin and his keris

A day earlier at the Umno Youth assembly, Hishammuddin Hussein unwittingly stole the limelight with his keris. Being an English-educated elitist, Hisham is always under pressure to show off his Malay credentials. And being called pondan (sissy) by his PAS counterpart probably drove him to use the language of threats and violence.

Hisham’s brandishing of the keris was packaged with a “Malay agenda” and the call to revive the New Economic Policy (1970-1990), which Mahathir toned down with the National Development Policy (1991-2000) and the National Vision Policy (2001 onwards).

By then Abdullah’s voice had all but disappeared. Everyone at the July 2005 Umno general assembly sang the racial tune as if it was in Umno’s glory days of the 1970s. It was a downhill spiral for Abdullah, his agenda and his grip over the party.

Looking back, the private meeting in Port Dickson which I attended turned out to be an important one which I will write about it in the final instalment of this article next week. — The Rocket

                This entry was posted on Wednesday, 8 February 2012, 5:27 am and is filed under
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When will Najib go into the den of the extremists to preach the message of moderation – especially  Utusan Malaysia and  UMNO Supreme Council?

The Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak preached the message of moderation to a Chap Goh Meh celebration at Fo Guang Shah Dong Zen temple in Jenjarom, Selangor on Monday night, invoking the Buddhist teaching of moderation.

Najib said: “Even though we may differ in terms of faith, moderation exists in almost all religions…Moderation points to an understanding of not practicing extreme, fanatical, militant or violent ideology among us.”

He urged all Malaysians to  support the concept of transformation and not to let the opportunity to pass to lift the nation to be a fully developed nation by 2020.

I commend Najib for spreading the message of moderation but he should realize that he was speaking to a converted crowd – as the audience in Jenjarom was imbued by the Buddhist teaching of “Middle Way” and/or the Confucianist doctrine of “zhong yong”.

It does not escape notice that although the Prime Minister had been preaching the message of moderation at a few  international forums, and hosted an International Conference on the Global Movement of Moderates only last month, extremism and intolerance have been rearing their ugly heads resulting in the worst racial and religious polarization in the country in the first three years of any Malaysian Prime Minister from Tunku Abdul Rahman to Tun Razak, Tun Hussein Onn, Tun Mahathir, Tun Abdullah and now to him.

Najib should continue to preach the message of moderation but it is important that he should not just  spread the word to the converted like the Chap Goh Meh celebration at Jenjarom  but must take the message to extremist groups and circles who need conversion to the message of moderation the most.

How can Najib expect the bona fides of his message of moderation, though repeated in international conferences or to selected audiences in the country, to be taken seriously if Utusan Malaysia,  the official newspaper of his own political party, UMNO, is the daily personification of a shrill, irresponsible,  extremist and intolerant Voice both on racial and religious grounds?

For the past three years, Utusan Malaysia had launched a relentless, seditious and incendiary campaign against the DAP, hurling lies and making the completely baseless and scurrilous allegations that DAP is anti-Malay, anti-Islam, anti-Malay Rulers, and even trying to establish a Christian Malaysia and appoint a Christian Prime Minister – without any effort by the Prime Minister to halt such “extremism”.

In fact, there had been several occasions when Najib had been guilty of “extremist” outbursts himself since becoming Prime Minister in  the last 34 months.

Najib must decide whether he wants to be an exemplar of moderation for all Malaysians, regardless of race, religion or political beliefs, or a Jekyll-and-Hyde who assumes the pose as a moderate to certain sections of the population while maintaining the posture of an extremist to others.

Let me put this question to Najib directly: when will he go into the den of the extremists to preach the message of moderation – especially  Utusan Malaysia and UMNO Supreme Council?

Najib’s Thaipusam message this year is to ask Malaysian Hindus to place their “nambikei (trust)” in him.

Or as he specifically said in his speech at the Thaipusam celebrations in Batu Cave yesterday: “You help me, and I can help you. Nambikei. You trust me and I trust you.”

It is sad and an example of the serious straying from the path of “moderation” that a sacred religious festival in Malaysia should be reduced to such a blatant and unashamed politicking for votes for the forthcoming 13th general elections.

Najib’s cynical “You help me, I help you” message has understandably evoked many adverse responses, including viz:

Firstly,
 “The Indian Malaysians have already given Umno-BN the trust for 50-plus years. What more do you want, PM Najib Razak?”.
 (As voiced by reader to an online news portal).

Secondly, destroying Najib’s claim that he is Prime Minister for all Malaysians, regardless of race, religion, region or socio-economic status, in keeping with his signature 1Malaysia policy.

I regard Najib’s signature policy of 1Malaysia as a policy of moderation. But does Najib still stand by this policy of moderation, when not only the Deputy Prime Minister, Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin repudiated it by declaring from the very beginning that he was Malay first and Malaysian second, even the Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, Datuk Seri Idris Jala who is responsible for expounding the 1Malaysia policy has dissociated himself from it last week, when he asked:  “Why must I be Malaysian first and Malay second?”

The next stop for Najib to preach his message of moderation after Utusan Malaysia and UMNO Supreme Council is his Cabinet – and I await the day when every Cabinet Minister, including the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister, can publicly declare that they are Malaysian first and their race, religion, region and socio-economic status second as advocated and propounded by the 1Malaysia Policy!

                This entry was posted on Wednesday, 8 February 2012, 8:03 am and is filed under
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Let MPs have a free vote when Parliament reconvenes on 12th March on whether Shahrizat should resign as Minister over the RM330 million NFC “cattle condo” scandal

Now, even Gerakan, the political party whose President had to get into Cabinet by the backdoor of Parliament, has joined the pack of wolves in Barisan Nasional demanding  for the resignation of Datuk Seri Shahrizat Abdul Jalil as Minister for Women, Family and Community Development.

Although couched in the sweetest of words, calling on Shahrizat to “sacrifice” for Barisan Nasional and expressing “much sympathy” for her,  the Gerakan Deputy President Datuk Chang Ko Youn hoped that the Wanita UMNO chief will have the “magnanimity to vacate her position as a minister in the cabinet and focus her energy on combating this…assault on her family”.

It will not be long before Gerakan leaders themselves will be asked by their Umno counterparts to make “sacrifices” for the larger interests of UMNO and Barisan Nasional.

Be that as it may, it is clear that  the Gerakan Deputy President has either  not heard or believed Shahrizat protesting in the loudest of voices that she is married to the chairperson of National Feedlot Corporation (NFC) which has nothing to do with her official duties as Minister of the Cabinet.

The question is how many Ministers, Members of Parliament and Barisan Nasional leaders at all levels are of the same mind –  not heard or believed Shahrizat’s protestations.

MCA President Datuk Seri Chua Soi Lek had publicly  blamed Shahrizat for “poor handling” of the “cattle condo” scandal causing the public to perceive the NFC project as “real rotten”.

UMNO internal  protests against Shahrizat has become like a suppressed volcano in UMNO – despite calls by the former Prime Minister Tun Mahathir, former Wanita UMNO chief, Tan Sri Rafidah Aziz and the current Wanita UMNO deputy chief Datuk Kamila Ibrahim that Shahrizat should resign as Cabinet Minister.

Would Shahrizat survive a secret ballot in the Cabinet if there is a vote  whether she should just pack up her bags and resign as Minister for Women, Family and Community Development?

May be, all Members of Parliament should have a free vote when Parliament reconvenes on 12th March on whether Shahrizat should resign as Minister for Women, Family and Community Development over the RM330 million NFC “cattle condo” scandal.

Would Shahrizat agree to such a free vote as the first item of Parliamentary business next month?

Would the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak and his deputy, Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yasin have any objections to let MPs decide Shahrizat’s Cabinet future?

                This entry was posted on Thursday, 9 February 2012, 5:25 pm and is filed under
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