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Nik Nazmi Nik Ahmad on 'Inertia or Ignorance: The Challenge of Dismantling Malaysia’s ...
2012 budget: Not transformative but a desperate vote buying bid with tax payers’ money
What price freedom from restricted residence?

Nik Nazmi Nik Ahmad on 'Inertia or Ignorance: The Challenge of Dismantling Malaysia’s ...

Posted: 09 Oct 2011 07:46 PM PDT

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Co-presented with Asialink and the Asia Society AustralAsia Centre

Malaysia's Federal Constitution was formulated through a historical consensus among the Federation's main ethnic communities and the British administrators. While the Constitution provides for asymmetrical freedoms and responsibilities, equality as a fundamental liberty is enshrined.

Yet as authoritarian racial politics becomes more enshrined and Malaysia's institutions have sacrificed their liberty, integrity and transparency, we see festering tensions in Malaysia's social fabric. But Malaysia has an emerging new politics and a society that is demanding change through the fledgling new media. What is holding Malaysia back from dismantling its race-based politics – inertia or ignorance?

(Abstract provided by Nik Nazmi Nik Ahmad.)

Posted: 09 Oct 2011 07:39 PM PDT

It is bandied as a budget for next phase of development and transformative in nature but I can't see how transformative this budget can be when the bulk of allocation is not meant for development but just keeping the existing machinery moving. A damning indicator is that salaries and allowances for our bloated civil servants are budgeted at RM52billion, much greater than development expenditure and more thandouble the total amount of personnel income tax collected at RM21billion.

Instead I see plenty of handouts for vote buying but no clear indication of how this budget is going to be financed. Revenue for 2012 is budgeted to increase up to RM186.9 billion, up tremendously from RM159.6 billion in 2010, with steep increases from petroleum income and company taxes.

The BN administration has taken heart from the increases reflected in its latest forecast for 2011 but there is no consideration about being prudent with the windfall and starting to trim excesses. Let's hope BN's revenue forecast for 2012 is not erring on the optimistic side in view of the difficult economic climate predicted for 2012.

But you can't do any good to your revenue collection by granting Lynas, who is setting up a grim reaper kind of factory and enjoying super normal profit, a 12 year tax holiday (which is 2 years beyond the stipulated period in our Income Tax Act, 1967)

There is more than 1 budget, you know

Total expenditure in Pakatan Rakyat's alternate budget for 2012 is RM220.5 billion which is lower than BN's latest forecast for 2011 RM230.8 billion and yet BN MPs are already calling it plucking figures out of thin air/irresponsbible etc.

http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/malaysia/article/pakatan-budget-cant-rein-in-spending-says-bn/

How can a bigger spender with proven record of weak financial control criticise a new administration which have proven financial management record and praised by the Auditor General?

Posted: 09 Oct 2011 03:34 AM PDT

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Last Wednesday, in Parliament, while debating the bill to repeal the Restricted Residence Act, 1933, Najib stated that the government had 'decided to abolish the 1933 Act because the law is outdated and no longer relevant to the current situation', and went on to talk about how, in the present era of mobile broadband and smart phones, the restricted residence orders had become ineffective.

Was Najib being absolutely candid about the situation leading to this repeal, or were there other considerations?

Malaysiakini reports that Najib went on to say that the government had embarked on this journey 'not because of any pressure… the test (is) whether we deliver on the promise or not….Other parties can recklessly or unashamedly admit that this is their idea or opinion They are not government mandated by the majority of the people to honour what was promised'.

What promise?

And to whom?

And were there any promises made in return?

That same Malaysiakini report quotes Kerismudin as saying, in relation to the release orders, then already signed, relating to the 125 individuals who were going to immediately benefit from the law that would later be repealed, that the 'groundwork was done much earlier… this was not something we plucked from the air' .

What, precisely, did this groundwork entail?

Last Thursday, at a meeting with a senior civil servant where others were also present, this person said that the 125 persons to be released and the 200 others who would have the unserved restricted residence orders cancelled following upon the repeal of the restricted residence law are all known big-time criminals with enough evidence to put them all away for a long, long time.

Trouble is, they wont go down alone.

They'll also take with them practically half the cabinet, scores of senior civil servants and many top cops.

So restricted residence was never a punishment or a deterrent.

At most, an inconvenience.

Otherwise, it was business as usual.

So why, asked the civil servant, the hurry to repeal this Act and free these top dog hoodlums, yet there is not the same rush with the ISA where most of those detained are not criminally tainted?

The answer, he said, was in the promise that Najib spoke of.

The 325 known cash-rich criminals, whose business interests are each, in their own right, the 'goose that lays the golden egg', have promised to provide UMNO with cash for the 13th GE, in return for their new-found unfettered freedom.

I asked if these hoodlums had already made good on their promise of cash for the elections.

The civil servant said he was not sure.

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Kredit: www.malaysia-today.net

Isnin, 10 Oktober 2011