It is comforting that the Najib administration is showing some concerns about the size of government expenditure. They are doing something about it in some parts of government, even as the big picture offers a more complex and contradictory narrative. Yet, not all cuts in spending are right.
A reduction or saving cannot be done simply for the sake of reduction. That is mindless. There have to be principles behind all cuts.
For many skeptics of the state, that principle is small government. The concept demands the power of the state be kept in check. It advocates limiting the size of government while instituting a mechanism to counter the influence of the state.
As far as a system of check and balance is concerned, the idea of a small government is not an ideological extreme. A wall separating various offices — offices that if left together would corrupt the whole structure — prevails in any society subscribing to the supremacy of rule of law out of fear for potential abuse of power
That includes, believe it or not, Malaysian society. Even companies put in place some check and balance mechanism, even if in some cases it is only for show, and even if only to find scapegoats when something goes wrong like what is happening in certain government-linked companies in Malaysia.
A system of check and balance is expensive but one does not simply throw it out of the window for the sake of cutting cost. There is more at stake than failing to balance the budget.
For instance, one simply does not merge the functions of the police and the judges together to reduce government expenditure. The world of Judge Dredd — someone who is the police, judge, jury and executioner all at the same time — makes for a good comic but it is not ideal for the creation of a power abuse-free society.
Some believe in the separation wall. The Najib administration believes in the Blue Ocean Strategy. If the government is left to its own device, the blue ocean may inundate us all.
The Najib administration is encouraging closer co-operation between the police and the military. He said this was part of the Blue Ocean Strategy thinking. I call it the Officer Dredd thinking.
Some co-operation — having the military patrolling the border instead of the police and rehabilitating petty criminals in army camps instead of in prisons — seems innocent and even laudable at first glance. Not only it does cut cost, more importantly its rationale makes sense.
Others — having the police and the armed forces patrol the streets jointly and using of military facilities for police recruiting and training — are insidious in nature.
There is a reason behind the separation between the police and the military. The police force is concerned with mostly internal affairs. They are armed and trained accordingly. The traditional function of the military is to address external threats. The military does have additional roles in times of emergency but the qualifier is clear: only in times of emergency.
The awesome firepower of the military is the reason why it is not granted the wide-ranging power of the police force in a society under normal, peaceful times. Once merged, the forces will have extraordinarily wide powers that no single entity should have. It is a step closer towards military rule. Whoever wields this power will be the dictator. The gun will always be too hot for a free democracy.
For this reason, any co-operation between the police and the military deserves critical assessment and hostile suspicion.
Suspicions aside, is the finance of the government in such dire straits that the police and the military have to participate in someone else’s fascination with Blue Ocean Strategy and, in the process, tear down the separation wall?
If the situation is so bad, the government can take other more traditional avenues without adversely affecting any public check and balance mechanism.
There are 24 ministries in the Najib administration, not including the offices of the prime minister and the deputy prime minister. Do we need so many ministries, even more ministers and their deputies?
Some government ventures in the commercial world ended up needing bailouts. Does the government need to be in the business world?
More than 20 per cent of the RM67 billion worth of stimulus spending has yet to be spent as of March 2011, two years later. Does the Malaysian economy need that stimulus spending, if it was needed in the first place at all?
And there are multiple failed economic corridors courtesy of the Abdullah administration. Why is the Najib administration still propping them up?
First published in The Malaysian Insider on April 6 2011.
