The government has used indiscrimately over the past four decades the infamous Internal Security Act, but often, the targets were never a "security porblem" --mostly Opposition members, unionists, NGO activists, occasionally some
“religious deviationists”, whatever the latter means.
To my mind, the greatest threat to national security is that created by the presence of foreigners in Malaysia, mainly as illegal workers. A conservatiive estimate, at least 800,000 of them are still lurking around!
Let me recap.
Towards end-2004, government figures put the numbers of foreign illegals at 1.2million to 1.5million. Then it launched Ops Amnesty, and some 400,000 of them returned home, mostly back to Indonesia. Which in doing simple arithmetics, leaves us a remaining 800,000 to 1.1million – scary, isn’t it?
Vicious cycles of unemployment for Malaysians
The 400,000 Indonesian illegals who left for their home who were expected to come back under a fast-track programme did not take up our government’s generous offer. So the adhoc policy turns to Pakistan to invite 100,000 workers to fill the vacuum; at the same time, the Government said workers can come from India, Bangldesh, Vietnam and Nepal, but they must come in "legally".
But have we identified the problems correctly, and is the Government adopting the right remedial measures? Or is the Government just taking pot-shots like using a machinery gun so that some bullets will hit an occasional target or two? Isn’t this creating more vicious cycles of unemployment for our own workers? Unemplloyed graduates by last year’s counts varied from 18,000 to 80,000 – enhanced annually by tens of thoiusand university graduates in mid-year (yes, June-July 2005 is upon us again!).
Depresing local workers' wages
For the past decade or longer, the huge influx of workers had depressed wwages so much that it was no longer viable for local construction workers to remain working in construction. Yes, the foreign Indonesian or Bangladeshi workers getting RM30 a day would be able to save and live like a lord when they return to their homeland after 2-3 years with "huge" savings when converted to the Indon rupiah, making them multi-millionaires! But Malaysian workers toiling in the hot equatorial sun who had been earning some RM50-RM80 a day previously now find themselves having less take-home pay, but prices of food and other essential items rising and rising every year, with no end in sight. They don't see the oil dollar from new oil fields found off Malaysian shores trickle down some benefits to them ordinary citizens. Some employers complain that local workers are “choosey” – they job-hop too muc, they always ask for more.
No, in most cases, – it’s the employesr who hhave been exploitative of “cheap” labour. A graduate in 1980 could start at about RM1,000; 25 years later, it’s just about RM1,500 – that’s only 50per cent more, way behind the salary increase adjusted for inflation and declining rinngit value Allowing for just 3per cent annual inflation rate, in a straight-line extrapolation, INFLATION factor would have meant a 75percent adjusted upwards just to keep in pace, without the lessened purchasing power of the ringgit taken into consideration.
So our people are not unlike the Americans in general, as observed by Krugman, they have less take-home pay, and it’s now a two-income family, not by choice but by compulsion just to maintain some semblance of middle-class living, slowly but surely dwindling.
In the early 1990s, the property sector was the darling of investors and the state capital cities, epitomised by Kuala Lumpur and Petaling Jaya, and Georgetown, quickly became a boom towns centred on the building of office buildings and residential houses, mid-priced terraced to high end ranging from RM80,000 to RM1.0-2.0 milion condominiums and "exclusive" bungalows depending on locations. At the same, annual updates from experts in the industry showed several billion worth of properties unsold ("overhang" is the term), and yet the developers are building more and more ...
Many KLSE listed companies switched smartly from their non-property core activities to property development. defeating their original listing objectives in the first place -- never mind, the ultimate aim was to make profits, but for whom? The bells rang joyous and gay for the first arrival investors, but for late-comers, usually small retail investors, the bells started to toll. When several firms were put under S176, or PN4 which implies that they were unable to manage their finances properly, and are heading towards bankruptcy or already are, or did not have anymore core activities with sustainable profitability, many commoner-investors were made suckers.
Practices that cause disharmony
The sore thumb that sticks out from the new launches is the differentiated pricing for properties for non-bumiputra and bumiputra, with the latter given discounts from 7percent to 15 percent. Even for higher end properties of RM200,000 and above!
My question: for those who have arrived – to be able to afford RM200,000 housing – why should they be given a discount? Non-bumi or bumi-, IT DOESN’T MAKE SENSE, human or monkey!
This is clearly a DIVISIVE practice. It is NOT a policy in line with equitable distribution of wealth or closing the gap between the haves and have-nots. My rationale is that a person buying a house costing RM200,000 would be deemed to have arrived in soiety, likely to be in the income bracket of about RM10,000 or higher per month (whether single or double income earners).
The government must not act in cahoots with politically-connected developers to perpetuation racially-divisive practices. Help the hardcore poor, give those earning less than RM1,000 subsidised or even free housing, no caring Malaysian would fault a caring government for that. But to continue with helping the well-off and rich to gget richer, that's a recipe for disaster. A country's civic and social policy is aimed at closing the rich-poor divide, not widening it!
It must surely be a humane cause that middle class citizens care for their poorer cousins in the kampung like Kg Ulu Bentong, or villages like Mambau New Village,like or city squatter areas around Chow Kit. I’d rather the 7-15 percent discounts be given to subsidise low-cost housing for the poor, regardless of ethnic origins, religion or gender.
On April 11, 2005 newspapers flashed the news headlined Employers may be compelled to hire more locals, quoting Deputy Minister of Human Resources Datuk Abdul Rahman Bakar as saying that the ministry plans to amend the Employment Act 1955 for the purpose of requiring employers to employ at least 51 percent of Malaysians in their workforce to reduce reliance on foreign workers.On the surface, this appears a "kind" move.
Under the initial proposal, the requirement will involve all sectors, including the manufacturing, construction and service industries. But on deeper reflection, the question is: How can you enforce this quota when policy experimentation forces the local workforce to flow in the opposite direction? Remember, many of young and qualified Malaysians are lured abroad to work, some to stay permanently, because they are not wanted here in their own Motherland, for one reason or another.
Earlier this year, Health Minister Datuk Chua Soi Lek in accompanying Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi in his official visit Down Under, was reported to have urged Malaysian doctors, especially specialists, in Australia -- quite likely holding Permanent Resident status there -- to return to serve their home country, with several conditions e.g. three years' compulsory service with the government hospital, being waived for those above age 45.
To me, previous similar attempts like that mounted by the science ministry to get Malaysian scientists to come back to serve the motherland had failed miserably. The country always seems to act after the fact, "woo-ing" professionals who have settled down comfortably in their new, adopted "homes" to return -- throwing in a few candie bars now and then. Such measures only work with kindergarten level; hey, we ware dealing with educated, well-informed, globalised citizens here!
Our leaders may benefit with a little time off reading Thomas Friedman's "The Lexus and the Olive Tree". Maybe, just maybe, they may wake up to the fact it's now the Internet age, and a borderless world. We indeed live in a village, the globalised village. And it's open competition out there, and free and untamed market forces ever-changing and quite unpredictable. The Ministry of Human Resources has better inform and equip itself properly, otherwise it wakes up one day to become a Rip van Winkle!
The government from last May 1 had raised the price of diesel and petrol by 20 and 10 sen per litre, respectively, as part of a strategy to gradually reduce the gap between subsidised and unsubsidised diesel and cut down the rampant smuggling the led to a crippling shortage recently. The international price of petrol products had risen by 65.35sen per litre form petrol and 75.49sen per litre for diesel. The PM's Office said then in a statement that in 2004, the government had subsidised RM4.8billion worth of petroleum products. If prices were not raised this year, the government would have to bear a subsidy of RM8.96billion while foregoing RM7.85billion through tax exemptions.
But with today’s press reports (read preceding News Interruptus!) of Petronas making record profit of RM35.5billion for the last financial year ended March 2005, will we soon have another round of petrol price increase? Who weeps for Malaysia indeed?
Desiderata's limited knowledge tells him that Malaysia is a net exporter of petrol, and yet we do not get to enjoy a little of Petronas’ largesse. I sadly reprise here my poem:
Bleeding Malayisans
Oil fields offshore Malaysia are a-plenty
Yet when world prices rise
Malaysians pay more for their petrol
Shouldn't it be the other way around?
We produce an oil surplus
Which commands premium prices
No, the politicians smartly tell us
The oil subsidies keep rising
Hence, we raise the pump prices
We chase away Malaysians in their youth
To study in faraway land
A decade or two later
We beg them to come back
To "serve" the motherland
Who bleeds more, my dear?
Malaysia or Malaysians?
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