Category: Politics & government

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Politics & government

[2458] PEMANDU needs an expiry date

A friend asked me once what I thought of PEMANDU. He expected me to praise it since he knew where my economic bias lies. Here was PEMANDU advocating liberalization in a number of ways. There I was, a person who has been accused of being a neo-liberal at one time or another… there was a match in preferred policy. Despite that, I gave the friend a non-committal answer because I was unsure how things would turn out in the end.

Things have become clear since and I have rationalized my thoughts, I think, quite comprehensively. This is what I think of the unit under the Prime Minister’s Department.

Many of these initiatives can be done without PEMANDU at the helm. A number of initiatives are Proton-like, with Proton being more or less a rebadged Mitsubishi. Many projects merely received a nod from PEMANDU and that alone allows those projects to be listed as PEMANDU-related projects.

To be fair, there are actual initiatives like the Government Transformation Program with all of its indicators. Many initiatives offer real measurements of progress in some areas. In the past, progression and regression were purely a matter of opinion. These measurements provide an anchor for a more objective discussion. That is laudable. The work on the mass rapid transit is two, save some problems like how contracts are being awarded. One can have a list of the good stuff done and planned. Its push for a more responsible approach in public finance is another praiseworthy effort, although contradictions raise skepticism.

How does one react to PEMANDU’s call for subsidy and deficit reduction when the unit itself praises fiscal populism?

How does one react to a call for private-led economy when it is the public sector that is leading the charge?

How does one react to market-friendly affirmative action?

Beyond the superficiality and the contradiction lies one consistency. PEMANDU signifies the concentration of power. Roles once spread among various ministries — which can be a system of check and balance — have now been transferred to the Prime Minister’s Department. The fact that the prime minister and finance minister are the same person serves only to strengthen the point.

Pemandu is now the economic central planner, the construction contractor, judge and all. It is even your emailman, judging by its enthusiastic support for the 1Malaysia email project.

Power concentration can be useful when the government itself is debilitated, filled with deadwood, stuck with legacy issues and trapped in time. For example, PEMANDU’s public communication is slick. One can imagine how badly such communication would have been handled by the Ministry of Information. The ministry is still fighting the communists after all of these years.

Just as the concentration has its benefits, there is a cost. The cost is a weakened check and balance system.

There is such a thing as too much power and Pemandu is accumulating powers within the government. Given its wide-ranging influence, it is becoming a ministry by itself, headed by an unelected minister who reports to yet another unelected minister.

Meanwhile, other parts of government are becoming weaker as their roles diminish. Where is the Ministry of Works in the MRT equation? Where is the Ministry of Finance in the subsidy debate? PEMANDU appears to play the larger roles, implying its influence. This will adversely affect the democratic nature of governance in Malaysia, whatever much left there is. The continuous existence of PEMANDU will continue the trend of power accumulation.

For this reason, PEMANDU should not exist for eternity. There has to be an expiry date so that these concentrated powers will not accumulate to a point that it becomes a struggle between an authoritarian and the rest of Malaysia. There must be a point when those powers will be redistributed back across the government.

Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved
First published in The Malaysian Insider on November 7 2011.

Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved

erratum — In the original article at The Malaysian Insider, I misidentified Menara Warisan Merdeka as Menara Wawasan. Furthermore, I mistakenly associated it with PEMANDU. I have removed the reference here. Apologies for the mistakes. Here are the deleted sentences: “Take the Menara Wawasan proposal by PNB. PNB could easily go ahead with it without Pemandu stamping a GNI value to it.”

Categories
Economics Politics & government

[2454] Oh, Papandreou the socialist, the coward, the opportunist

If I were a European taxpayer seeing my money being used to bailout a near-bankrupt socialist government due to outrageous spending while I live responsibly, I would be angry. Why should I be the guarantor of a profligate? But if I wanted the Eurozone to stay intact, I would bite the bullet and angrily pay for the bailout.

If I were a European taxpayer funding the bailout, I would be fuming mad with the Greek Prime Minister Georgios Papandreou’s referendum plan. After all the hassles and the blows punched to get the money, however insufficient it is for the whole of Eurozone, Papandreou hides behind the angry masses, trying to deflect blame from the Greek government to the benefactors of the bailout facility.

The Greek government is a bunch of coward socialists, refusing to own up for its mistake, too insignificant to be bold and solve it. Papandreou may say it is done in the name of democracy, but he forgets the adjective representative. He could easily do it but no. He is afraid of the political cost and so he adopts direct democracy and gambles the whole structure for his own convenience. He wants to refresh his mandate but he has his mandate already. This is about passing the buck.

Oh, he is Papandreou the socialist, the coward, the opportunist.

But I am not a European. Yet, I am very angry at the Greek government.

I hope Greece burn. Let Papandreau fiddles while Greece burns, as Nero did when Rome did. Let us see how bad the austerity plan compares to a complete bankruptcy. Let Greece be demoted to the third world. On with the natural experiment on the socialists.

Categories
Politics & government

[2450] The Commonwealth, the irrelevant

Yet again, an international organization that does very little beats its chest, declaring its self-proclaimed importance to the world. Its members praise the organization for one thing or another. This is the Commonwealth of Nations and it is having its Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Perth.

The truth is that like many other international organizations out there, the Commonwealth is increasingly irrelevant.

Really, what exactly does the Commonwealth do, apart from hosting the Commonwealth Games every four years? And oh, yes, CHOGM too?

The last time it played any significant role was its campaign against apartheid in South Africa. That was almost two decades ago. All other issues after that demonstrated the inefficacy of the organization. It holds no sway on Pakistan. Australia and New Zealand alone can exert pressure on the problematic Fiji and other small Pacific island-states. Corruption? Lip service. Climate change? It did not matter at Copenhagen. Development? The days of the Colombo Plan is long gone. If it has not yet, then it is definitely close to its expiry date. Individual rights? Human rights? Please do not make me laugh.

So, what will be the biggest topic discussed in the latest CHOGM meeting in Perth, Australia?

Numero uno: the line of succession of the British monarchy. Yes. Of all issues bedeviling the world right now, the Commonwealth’s main concern is the line of succession of the British monarchy.

Oh, it will also discuss how to celebrate the Queen’s diamond jubilee. God save the Queen.

Of course, these issues are perfect for the Commonwealth realm. These are issues of great importance to an irrelevant organization. How much more irrelevant can one get?

Manmohan Singh, the Prime Minister of the biggest democracy in the world, realizes this. He is skipping the CHOGM meeting in Perth, which opens today.

Even the British Prime Minister David Cameron is giving the opening a miss, knowing exactly what and where his priority is at the moment: Europe. This is telling.

Categories
Economics Politics & government

[2442] Hypocrisy hampers deficit reduction agenda

If one throws a dart randomly at those pieces of paper pinned on the wall, there is a good chance the dart will land on a handout provision. Those papers are the 2012 Budget.

The Budget, as tabled by the Najib administration, is an election budget. Civil servants, teachers, the police force, the armed forces, pensioners and others will get their share regardless of justifiability.

Meanwhile, the subsidy liberalization program that the Najib administration was so gung-ho about earlier has taken a back seat, half-baked and emitting a stench called hypocrisy. Idris Jala, a man who unproductively exaggerated that Malaysia would go bankrupt if the government expenditure continued to rise, now praises the Budget of goodies.

Such is the loyalty of some men to ideas and principles. The wind blows and the mind changes. There is no principle to stick to because only political convenience matters. Never mind the contradiction and hypocrisy. Voters have a short memory span. Give them money and they will go gaga. It is all about winning elections, not honesty and consistency.

The financial position of the federal government could be in a better shape if the administration had the necessary honesty and consistency instead of bending backwards to accommodate the populism monster.

Without the monster, the fiscal deficit for year 2012 — the Najib administration projects to be 4.7% of nominal gross domestic product (or RM33.8 billion in absolute terms) — could be lowered considerably. It could possibly go down as far as 3.7% of nominal GDP if all the subsidies, one-time cash transfers and other election-related handouts are flushed down the drain.

Admittedly, the drastic reduction will be a shock to the system that none might want to experience amid the present global economic uncertainty.

Yet, in times of uncertainty, it is only prudent to save for rainy days even within political needs. This is doubly true given that regardless what has been said and done about the importance of domestic demand, external demand is still wildly important to the domestic economy.

A number of analysts have already voiced out that the government’s revenue figures are too optimistic for a pessimistic world. That is all the more reason for observers to be conservative with the federal government’s finance.

The fiscal deficit can be brought down still lower even with political considerations in mind. Removing the RM3,000 one-off gift to 4,300 individuals, another RM500 one-off transfer to an expected 3.4 million persons and the KAR1SMA program that will cost RM1.2 billion off the Budget while keeping the bloated subsidy regime intact, the deficit for the year 2012 could stand at 4.4% out of nominal GDP instead of the higher projected 4.7%.

One could argue that these programs are welfare enhancing, hence they deserve to be written into the 2012 Budget. In order to forward that argument however, one has to believe in it first. Honesty is required.

Unfortunately, many of those within the government whom now say these are caring measures are exactly those whom accused these same measures of being irresponsibly populist. This suggests one thing. Their only moral compass involves one question: where did the idea come from?

If it is from across the aisle, it is destructively populist. If it comes from their side, the same measures are caring.

That is not a sincere moral system, for the currency is political convenience. The slogan is ”win the election and forget anything else.”

If honesty were of any value, these programs — regardless of whether they are labeled populist or caring — should have given way to a deficit reduction agenda. With honesty and consistency, the federal government would have a smaller deficit, so that there would be less taxation for all of us in the future.

Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved
First published in The Malaysian Insider on October 10 2011.

Categories
Economics Education Politics & government

[2440] Opposing double deduction for scholarship abroad

The government intends to give corporations double deduction for sponsoring students. While it is great to encourage the private sector to give out scholarships to students so that there are fewer reasons for government to do so, I think the double deduction is a bad idea. There two reasons.

First, I am with the idea that the government is spending too much money on sending undergraduates abroad. When the destination countries are developed countries like United States and the United Kingdom, the scholarship program as a whole will be awfully expensive. If you are to attend the University of Michigan as a government-sponsored student in a typical 4-year undergraduate program for instance, the tuition alone can surpass half a million ringgit, just like that.[1]

Of course, Michigan is not your typical university and there are of course cheaper universities out there in the US but most of those cheaper universities do not bring value to public money when there are better alternatives closer to home. You do not want to pay half a million ringgit to send something to a school like, oh, I don’t know, Ohio State University maybe?

Okay, that is uncalled for but you get my drift. OSU is a good university, only that Michigan is way better, in every single way. Including, thank the heavens, in football too!

I prefer the government to use the money on improving the local tertiary education instead. Money of course can only do so much. There are other factors like freedom on campus (Malaysian public universities seriously lack this) to develop a free inquiry culture but money does matter.

There are exceptions to my opposition to public scholarship to abroad, but these exceptions are so small that even putting them up while drastically reducing the program will free up tons of money for other uses. In the double deduction policy, since awards for places abroad is costlier than local spots, companies have the incentives to send students abroad, at taxpayers’ expense.

Secondly, the double deduction reduces government tax revenue only to do what the government is doing in the first place. It is only fee-shifting or paper-shifting so to speak. It does not matter who spends it because in the end, it will use taxpayer money. If the number of awards—for local and overseas spots—stays the same, then this policy will only increase the cost, explicitly or implicitly, of maintaining the policy, explicitly or implicitly. When the result is the same, why do it convolutedly? Such an accounting trick will add more cost than necessary to the government.

If the government is reducing scholarship award, then the money will flow out anyway before it gets in. It will show lower revenue and lower spending and then, maybe, smaller government. That is only because of that accounting trick. Like all accounting tricks, it is superficial.

At the very least, I think the double deduction should come with a caveat: only for sponsorships at local schools. If anybody wants to send somebody abroad, they should use their own money entirely.

Or otherwise, maybe just reduce corporate and service tax altogether so that this problem with double deduction would not be a problem to start with. That would truly be more substantial than that particular 2012 budget provision.

Or yet another or-case, the government should only give out less than 100% deduction while reducing the number of public scholarship awards to abroad.

Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reservedMohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reservedMohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved
[1] — [Office of the Registrar. Full Term Tuition & Fees. University of Michigan. Accessed October 9 2011]