Tag: institutional reforms

Categories
Liberty Politics & government Society

[2950] Too tame for our own good

Many things could describe the past two separate years that merged into one. Here, I would describe it as the taming of our society. The fire that powered many before was doused by shocks and disappointments of February 2020 along with all the political development that followed. This broke the heart of many.

And if there were still beating heart fighting on the political front, the pandemic that flared up soon after broke the body of many. The crisis and its mismanagement brought debilitating economic effects that forced many to switch attention away politics (politics here is not the narrowly defined partisan-party politics, but one about governance and the overall organization of society) to that of personal livelihood. Many died along the way.

Malaysian society as it was before the pandemic was mostly too polite for our own good, but the bludgeons needed to fight the pandemic turned that politeness into utter submission. There were noise and protests against the manner government regulation was applied incompetently. Some went to the streets. But those noise and protests were nothing compared to the years before. During the pandemic, far too few could, or willing to go to the ground, divided out of fear of getting infected, or the need to work at a time when unemployment was soaring, furloughing was the talks of the town, and wages were cut down significantly.

The foundation which the Muhyiddin government stood on was shaky soon after its undemocratic formation, but it stood for so long because any anger was contained by fear, or deference of power. But the ember-like anger burnt further and when it appeared a fire was about to lit—even patience among the polite has its limits—the irresponsible government played poker: they raised the stakes by declaring emergency. The stakes were raised to the point the polite did not dare challenge it too fiercely. Or they were too tired, and hapless.

The subsequent government under Ismail Sabri lowered the temperature for a while but the incompetence remained. That same incompetence was for all to see during the recent great floods across the peninsula. The further loss of life and property raised the political temperature yet again. The politics of race and religion showed it was all meaningless in the face of incompetence, so much so that this administration that largely has the same Cabinet members who previously prided itself as a Malay-Muslim government, has stopped marketing itself as one.

Amid the troubles faced by the general public, yet another scandal is erupting in the public first involving the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission, and as national crisis tends to pull other public institutions into the ditch (1MDB was one such case but on a grander scale), later the Securities Commission. A good institutional set-up would have contained it. This government prefers to drag everything down, for their benefits, at the expense of the country. All that highlights how institutional reforms achieved due to the 2018 General Election was fragile and needed nurturing, and how the events of February 2020 undid the good work. The message before had always been reforms took time, but few imagined there would be so big a digression happening so soon.

The digression is happening because we have been too polite, too tame amid assaults over our democratic institutions. It is time to be not so tame and fight.

I would like to end this post by reproducing Usman Awang’s Sepatah Kata:

Sebuah perkataan yang paling ditakuti
Yang tradisional sekali
Untuk bangsa kita yang pemalu.
Sekarang kata ini kuajarkan pada anakku:
Kau harus jadi manusia kurangajar
Untuk tidak mewarisi malu ayahmu.
Lihat petani-petani yang kurangajar
Memiliki tanah dengan caranya
Sebelumnya mereka tak punya apa
Kerana ajaran malu dari bangsanya.
Suatu bangsa tidak menjadi besar
Tanpa memiliki sifat kurangajar.

Categories
Economics

[2944] Run higher deficit, let the economy recover first

We are not out of the woods yet.

Yet, already there are individuals wanting to shift attention away from the economy towards government finance. The latest of these individuals are Najib Razak, who has the guts to talk about new taxes in the next two years when he is not paying his, with amount that would rival some of the taxes he proposes:

“I propose a temporary Covid-19 recovery tax package for two years. This, for example, will include a windfall tax, luxury condominiums development tax, stamp duty on transactions, inheritance tax, stock market trading tax, and higher personal income tax on high-income individuals.

“After two years, we can end this temporary tax.”

He also suggested that the government tax tech giants that have a presence in Malaysia, such as Amazon, Netflix, YouTube, Google, and Facebook, which have raked in a lot of profit, but have never been taxed here.

He said this should not impact consumers, and instead be levied on the companies’ profit margin. [Azril Annuar. Tax the rich: Najib proposes 2-year temporary recovery tax. The Vibes. September 15 2021]

While taxes in general will have to come, we cannot impose it as soon as possible and then pretend it will not jeopardize recovery the Malaysian economy is experiencing. Recovery so far has been weak. It has been so bad that the government are now celebrating base effect. Such is the quality of our leaders today.

From the look of it, 2021 GDP will likely still be smaller than the one in 2019. This just shows the incompleteness of our ongoing recovery. Unemployment is another measure to worry about, with the latest rate (July 2021) remains stubbornly high at 4.8%, well above of the 3.2%-3.4% range recorded during the pre-pandemic year of 2019. The incoherent management of the pandemic has exerted additional costs to the economy.

Here, we still need to prioritize the overall economy over government finance. While both are important and both are linked, the government has more room to run a loose fiscal policy more than families as well as small and medium-sized businesses. As I have mentioned before, the only barriers to greater borrowing are legal restrictions and there is nothing ‘economics’ about those legal restrictions. Furthermore, borrowing costs are low, with yields on 10-year MGS at 3.30%.

For this reason, it is better for the government to keep their hands off those onerous tax levers and instead run higher deficit ratio (or stay at the current ratio). Allow the economy to grow first. Let the economy recover properly before pushing of any kind of taxes. Once the economy comes, the taxes will also come too.

Only once the economy has returned to its pre-crisis level and trend can we begin to introduce new taxes. In the meantime, while the economy is still below pre-crisis conditions, other non-punitive measures should be introduced first.

Tin identification number (TIN) is one of those measures that will improve transparency in the market without imposing new tax burden to the economy. TIN would require all persons and entities be assigned a unique identifier, which must be appended to any transaction (like the opening of account, transfer of money, purchase of large assets like homes and cars). This will allow the tracing of money better. A little bit like the VAT/GST, but without the tax. Once the system is stabilized, data from TIN could be used to better design new taxes that are needed, including some of the taxes Najib mentioned. Things like wealth tax for instance need data on data on wealth in Malaysia is horrible. TIN can improve data collection by leaps and bounds, which will assist in designing a good tax.

TIN was in the works under Pakatan Harapan as part of their reform program (unfortunately, it was opposed by Muhyiddin in 2019 over concern the opposition would attack the move as a new tax. That was not the only reform that was sabotage by multiple people, which hobbled the overall institution reform efforts). One good news is that there is a good chance the TIN would finally be instituted beginning next year, based on signals given out by the Ministry of Finance.

I would like to reiterate that sequencing is important, and Najib ignores that factor.

The timing and sequencing inappropriateness are not the only concerns here. The other is its temporary nature of the proposal. Najib wants those taxes to last only two years. This is detrimental to longer term attempt at reforming the taxation regime.

Unlike Najib, I am in favor of having a 10-year or 15-year tax reform program, which makes permanent some of the taxes Najib mentions. Easy measure like TIN would happen within 2-3 years. Making the income tax more progressive is another easy move that could happen within 5 years, for instance. This longer-term plan solves several problems (underfunding of public sector, the need for off-budget financing, low taxbase, unfair treatment between labor and capital income, the growing digital economy relative to brick-and-mortar model, etc) more permanently while taking into account the state of the economy.

Having temporary tax measures as soon as possible ignores the state of the economy, and does not address some of the fiscal (and economic) challenges faced by the government.

Categories
Economics Politics & government Society

[2895] Lim Teck Ghee is exaggerating, but Pakatan has no choice but to do better

It was a hobby of sort of mine to attend public forums (fora?) a long time ago when I had time to kill. The late 2000s was a period of flourishing of civil society, and there were plenty of forums going on all around KL, from the most mundane to the most seditious.

At one of them, I remember a lawmaker admitting to exaggerating while making political claims, though he claimed not by much. He reasoned such exaggeration was meant to jolt people into action. A dry statement of fact alone would not inspire, with many surrendering to nonchalance on big issues.

I do see many exaggerations out there today. One of them is about how Vietnam is overtaking Malaysia.

Such event is a possibility. After all, history is filled with instances of countries falling from grace. Myanmar was once among the richest colonial economies in Southeast Asia and today, it is far behind multiple other countries that used to do worse. Malaya used to be at par with South Korea in terms of economic wellbeing but now, Malaysia is far behind the East Asian country, though we are doing not so bad.

But reasonable projections based on existing economic growth, population growth and several other factors point towards how Vietnam-overtaking-Malaysia scenario is possible but unlikely. Already having one of the oldest demography in the region – specifically 31 years old versus Malaysia’s 29 – with nominal GDP per capita at a quarter that of Malaysia, it is highly likely Vietnam would take quite some time with great difficulty to converge with Malaysia’s level, much less pass it.

I think Vietnam belongs to the same group as Thailand (and China): countries that will grow old first before they grow rich. The situation in Thailand is far worse: median age is 39 years old with nominal GDP per capita about seven tenths of Malaysia. Both Vietnam and Thailand are handicapped by with a quickly ageing population, leaving them with not much time for hastened growth. This is orthodox growth economics of course. Behind many of the leading growth models, beyond capital accumulation, tech progress and human capital, is population growth. Unfavorable demography usually leads to slower growth.

But again, it is not impossible for Vietnam to overtake Malaysia. Low likelihood, but still possible. There could be one event or two disrupting Malaysia’s and Vietnam’s growth path. It is hard to predict those events from happening compared to growth projection based on current scenario. But this is where exaggeration can help: it brings up fresh possibilities to take us out of our boring model forming our reasonable basis. It spices things up, opening up room for creative scenario planning.

Lim Teck Ghee claimed that Pakatan Harapan was “an unmitigated disaster for reform from whichever aspect or way you look at” at a public forum. He listed down his disappointments to back it up. “Education, governance, race relations, religious relations, the debacles of Icerd, Zakir Naik, the Melayu Dignity Congress and more. The list of political disappointments and failures keeps growing.”

Yes, there have been disappointments and I share them too. But I am never that naïve to believe all changes will take place from Day One, especially given the way Pakatan Harapan achieved the mandate to rule in the last general election. It is inevitable for democratic compromises to take place frequently, no matter how much one wants to stand one’s ground. This is not a technocratic dictatorship. It is a democracy, and increasingly less flawed at that.

But calling Pakatan Harapan as an unmitigated disaster, I would argue strongly, is an exaggeration given the reforms that have been carried out so far.

I can list those reforms. My favorite is the wider implementation of open tender throughout the public sector: democratic compromise has led to even contracts reserved for Bumiputras being given out via open tender and no longer given out directly most of the times. There are exceptions, but I feel many of them can be explained well. Indeed, for a monster organization unused to open tender system, implementation problems were aplenty and starting totally afresh was not always possible. But by and large, there are more and more adoption of open tender, creating a new culture that makes everybody afraid of dishing out direct contracts. Remember, just less than two years ago, nobody in the public sector would bat an eyelid for giving out direct contract. Direct negotiation was the norm.

Other examples of executed reform include fairer broadband internet market, more independent Parliament with all of its new Select Committees, more independent anti-corruption commission, freer press and even in education, the move away from exams towards a more liberal education.

And there are many more coming our way with good progress made: greater transparency in the public sector in the form of the shift towards accrual accounting and the establishment of the Independent Police Complaints and Misconduct Commission (IPCMC) within the 5-year mandate.

Almost none of the reforms that have happened or expected to happen would take place under the previous administration riddled with corruption led by a shockingly and outrageously dishonest leader, trapping the country’s institutions in a sticky thick morass that would scare any institutionalist away. To me, a disaster would have been a complete no-change scenario.

There clearly has been substantial change since May 9 2018. Only a blind man would deny that.

I cannot know his true intention, but from the perspective I have shared, perhaps Lim Teck Ghee’s exaggeration is needed to jolt us out into action. There are disappointments. And that means we have to work harder to overcome all those barriers to change.

Pakatan Harapan voters had high hopes – they still have great hopes – that Pakatan Harapan would achieve great things and completely change Malaysia for the better. Pakatan Harapan is better than Barisan Nasional, but Pakatan has no choice but to do better to match those great expectations.

Categories
Politics & government

[2874] The true test of this Pakatan Harapan government

Critics rushed to assign the new Pakatan Harapan government grades for its 100-day performance. MCA had the cheek to give the government a D grade. Others gave a B. If Pakatan Harapan had its own Pemandu, I am certain grade A+++ would have been announced in a pompous self-congratulatory parade.

I am unsure what grade I would give the government because of the subjective nature of the whole business. One could make it more objective by having a sheet tallying the weighted score, but I just won’t do that. Looking at my desk, I have many other things to do.

As I take a breather, all I can say is that I have my share of disappointment. Government action with respect to the recent child marriage case has been so underwhelming that I feel it is best for me not to think of it. Meanwhile, the official attitude taken against the LGBT community is not something I could defend. There are other problematic decisions, but all that points to the fact change does not happen overnight. It takes time, especially when it comes to culture.

In a democracy, changing the government alone is not enough. What is required is a change in the attitude of the people. At this moment, we need a leader who can make that happen without worrying too much about his or her approval ratings. But as I have been told, that is easy for me to say because I do not have to face the voters.

Yet, all those disappointments do not at all make me regret for doing what I did on May 9. In the days after it became clear there would be a Pakatan Harapan government, I think I understood early on how difficult it would be for change to happen and disappointment was something to be expected. Larger change needs time to happen.

And at the end of the day, before we rush to judge this government on its 101st day, I think it would be good to remind ourselves that at the very least, this government has a 5-year mandate. I would reserve my judgment until close to the end of that mandate.

This however does not mean the government should be free of criticism. Criticism is important to remind this government what is important, and to me, the most important agenda is the promised institutional reforms that will make sure the likelihood of past abuses repeating itself is low. The rest of the promises are secondary.

If we managed to set our institutions straight, then we would have a great foundation to build on in years to come beyond the 5-year period, regardless whichever side may come to power later. For me, that will be the true test of this Pakatan Harapan government.