Don't Leave Our Problems to the Next Generations

"Malaysia has the HIGHEST Income Disparity
between the rich and poor in Southeast Asia,
greater than that of Philippines, Thailand,  
Singapore, Vietnam and Indonesia."

  ---   According to the UNDP 1997 Human Development Report,^[1] and

 the 2004 United Nations Human Development (UNHDP) report

When I read the above on wikipedia. I got concerned and decided to look into the statement on income  disparity or income inequality further. I found the World Bank to have also said that income disparity of Malaysia is greater compared to our neighbours. Malaysia is a country rich in natural resources, such as oil  and gas, agricultural produces, minerals, etc. In natural resources, we are probably the richest country in Southeast Asia on per capita basis, save for Brunei.

Highest Income Inequality-  1st in SEA, 3rd in Asia

Our Barisan Nasional (BN) government have been implementing New Economic  Policy (NEP) since 1971 which has stated goal of poverty eradication and economic structuring by redistributing the wealth to increase the ownership of enterprise by Bumiputras. NEP is aimed at having a more equal income distribution among Malaysians. After more than 40 years of vigourous implementation of NEP, how can we be the worst among Southeast Asia countries in terms of income inequality or disparity?

Many Malaysians seem to be unaware of the problem of income inequality in our society. It is not a commonly known fact. Perhaps, mainstream media has been too shy to publish the problem of  income inequality in this country. Our government has made  no effort in explaining the problem that we are facing despite of NEP. In accordance to Gini coefficient, which is a measure used to calculate income inequality, Malaysians have a wider disparity of income levels among the countries in this region. Listing on income  inequalities of countries is made available for comparison.

The World Bank noted that income inequality 'appears to have stagnated at internationally high levels' despite having knocked down the national poverty rate by 10 times, from an average headcount of 37.7 percent in 1976 to 3.8 percent in 2009. Malaysia Economic Monitor April 2011 report further confirmed the failure of NEP by saying despite “vast improvements” in its socio-economic situation, the benefits did not spread out evenly with the bottom 40 percent of households accounting for only 14.3 percent of total income as at 2009. This information by the World  Bank and Malaysia Economic Monitor clearly reveals the failure of NEP and other BN government policies over the years.


It was further indicated by the World Bank that poverty in Malaysia retains “a strongly regional flavour”, with Sabah topping the list where nearly 20 percent of its population are living below the poverty line. Shockingly, Sabah is one of the state within Malaysia that is high in oil reserves. It is probably not wrong to say that Sabahans might have been short-changed. 

Further evidence of income inequality can also be found in Malaysian govt publications which are unfortunately not  widely disseminated. According to the Economic Planning Unit (EPU), 20 per cent of the high-income group received a monthly income of RM9,987 in 2009, as compared to 40 per cent of the low-income group who only received RM 1,440 per month. There is also criticism that efforts by Malaysian government to reduce income inequality seem to be too focused on achieving equality of results instead of equality of opportunity. Hence, the goals of NEP have not been achieved after more than 40 years. 

Dr Lim Ewe Ghee is one of the believer that income inequality is permissible and inevitable in a free market economy. There may be some truth to what he says, although there are others who are in disagreement with him. He has however went on to state that "income inequality propagated by ill-gotten wealth through theft, force, corruption, crony capitalistic favours, discrimination or discriminatory government policies cannot be justified. It leads us perhaps to a more general, deeper principle we have yet to make explicit. A market economy can indeed be subverted by crony capitalistic forces and other political distortions, which then subvert a principle implicit in — meritocratic fairness."

I can derive that even if income inequality may be justified in certain ways by free market principles. It can never be justified on the ground of corruption, abuse of power, discrimination, cronyism or injustices.

Malaysia has developed over the years unfortunately into a country with the highest income inequality among Southeast Asian countries. This is most regrettable. The original goals of NEP can not be entirely faulted. The implementation of NEP and other BN government policies are perhaps the reason behind the sad state of affairs on income equality that we are in now. It is widely known that corruption, abuse of power, discrimination, cronyism and injustices have got in the way of NEP and other BN government policy implementation. We have seen how wealthy a young crony can be from the way he splashes his money. There are BN leaders who are adamant and try to argue their way out despite ample evidence of their corruption practices. Their arguments could be ludicrous at times.

Corruption practices in Malaysia are evidently described in this Wall Street Journal news:

 

This level of income inequality is unsustainable and should be corrected. Income inequality can be a source of social unrest and ills. We can see that crime rates in our country are on the high side despite what the authority has been trying to claim. It is paramount that we  must do what we can to reduce this inequality of income. 

We know that BN govt is incapable of reducing income inequality after more than 50 years in power. They have made it worse. Our income inequality is the worst in Southeast Asia now. We have to choose another govt which is serious in tackling this problem. We do not have many choices. There is only Pakatan Rakyat that is the most promising. Their administrations in Penang, Selangor, Kelantan and Kedah have shown accountability, transparency and fairness so far. They have done well in improving the living standard of people in their states within the limited budget of a state government, especially in Penang and Selangor.

Income inequality is created and perpetrated by BN government during our lifetimes. We have to do what we can to reverse it during our lifetimes. It is only right that way. We must not leave our problems to the next generations!

 

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 ^[1] - Asian Analysis 1998 by Asean Focus Group, Professor Michael Leigh Director Institute of East Asian Studies University Malaysia, Sarawak.

 

Let's Make Malaysia Great Again!

"Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely."

Many of us may have heard this popular phrase. Several famous personalities, including politicians and historians, have said or used this phrase before. The origin of this phrase came from British historian, Lord Acton (1834–1902). In 1887, he said the following  :-

"All power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely."

"Unlimited power is apt to corrupt the minds of those who possess it"

 

One may expect things to have changed so much since 1887 to the extent that this phrase is irrelevant or less applicable now. After more than 120 years, is this phrase applicable in our current environment? We were a great country with multi-ethnic populations working together peacefully to secure independence from Britain. It is somewhat unfortunate if one is to find this phrase to be very much applicable to our country today.

Barisan Nasional (BN) has been in power for almost 56 years in Malaysia since 1957. BN is the only governing regime that many Malaysians know as government. Any other political party is usually known as opposition. Despite the fact that PAS or Parti Islam Se-Malaysia has been governing Kelantan for many years. In the eyes of public, they are still known an opposition party as opposed to a party in power. That goes to show the strong perception of BN as a coalition forming the ruling regime.

BN enjoys deep pockets after decades of harnessing wealth for governing the country under its de-facto authoritarian fashion. Why was there de-facto authoritarian rule? Has there not been election held at least every 5 years? There have been elections. These elections however may not have been clean and fair elections.There are news on how the electoral rolls and system have been rigged. NGOs such as Bersih and Merap have done good work and provided plenty of evidence on electoral fraud, abuse and problems. Sabah RCI is another example. Any Malaysian will not be amused by some of the evidence.

The situation that our country now is certainly not what envisaged by our forefathers during independence or wanted by the general public. Our people do not want corruption, abuse of power or authoritarian rule.

Najib Razak took office in 2009 and has portrayed himself as a transformational prime minister but surveys suggest BN is still viewed as a corruption-plagued, status-quo force. His background was perceived to be tainted by Altantuya's murder, Scorpene sub marine purchase, Boustead's purchase of Awan Megah (Deepak's company), privatised AES, Ampang LRT, Lynas rare earth plant, cost and necessity of MRT, 118 storey Menara Warisan, Razak Excange (Sg Besi military base development by 1MDB), etc. You can see how a crony or the mastermind behind 1MDB spends his money or possibly some other people's money.

There was Abdullah Badawi before him that called for change and clean government. Pak Lah did not have much success either. It was not important whether he was sufficiently sincere or determined enough to do the right thing. He did not do the job wanted by the people, the Malaysians.

It is not literally wrong to say that BN has absolute regulatory and shareholding controls over all the mainstream media including TVs, Radios and newspapers.These media channels are somehow, rightly or wrongly, under some form of duty to portray an 'undesirable' image  of the opposition. One just have to see how many times Utusan Malaysia had been successfully sued and found liable by the opposition leaders to understand this point.

The state of press freedom in Malaysia has now hit a historic low, with the country being ranked No 145 in the latest World Press Freedom Index - the worst since the annual index begun in 2002. Several accusations of Police manipulating crime statistics to report lower crime rates. Reported crime rates in Malaysia have been reduced so much so that we are now reported to be safer than Singapore. A case for Ripley's Believe It or Not? Malaysia has 'high risk'  of corruption in defence according to Government Defence Anti-Corruption Index released by Transparency International UK. BN has shown ample evidence of the fact that the coalition is incapable of changing for better as wanted by the people.

Our country's democracy is in jeopardy now. Our economy have been unfavourably affected. Our people's livelihood is in detriment. One dominating party system for the last 50 years is no longer working. Our best alternative now is 2 party system. We need 2 party system in Malaysia. We dont want either party to have absolute power. Many countries with 2 party or multi party system have done well in recent history. Examples of country with 2 party or multi party system are Thailand, Indonesia, Philippines, Taiwan, South Korea, Norway, Canada, USA, UK, Germany. 2 party system can be our way to put our country out of the misery of corruption, abuse of power and unjust practices, and put our country back on the path of a great nation.

Do we have a hope for 2 party system?  Plainly put by Bridget Welsh, "All said, Najib still has the advantage, but an opposition victory is clearly possible." We may have a hope but it is certainly a very slim hope.

Regardless of all the electoral rigging and unfair mainstream media, we, the Malaysians, are the only people who can drive away that advantage of Najib through the ballot box. We have to drive that advantage away if we are to have hope for a better country that is free from corruption, abuse of power and unjust practices. We have to collectively vote to solidify the foundation of 2 party system by voting for a party or coalition that is against corruption, abuse of power and unjust practices.

We dont want Pakatan Rakyat to be too comfortable either. We want BN to watch them like a hawk over any potential corruption, abuse of power or unjust practices. BN has possibly 5 decades of built-up experience and expertise in corruption and abuse of power. They will do a good job watching over the shoulders of Pakatan.

Let's make Malaysia great again! Malaysia was a great nation in securing independence peacefully. Malaysia was well respected as a better developed country within Southeast Asia on par with our neighbour, Singapore. Thailand and Indonesia have progressed ahead of us in many fields including ability to attract Foreign Direct Investment (FDI). Vietnam has also done better than us. An overhaul of the leadership and system is critically in need now. We cannot afford to have more corruption, abuse of power and unjust practices in our country. We have to choose a responsible government that is clean and fair to lead us to a greater height.

Let's make Malaysia great again!