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.
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.”