Malaysia Today - Your Source of Independent News

Who is the one short-changing Malaysians - BN or Pakatan?

Posted: 10 Nov 2011 01:08 PM PST

Selangor Opposition leader Satim Diman is barking up the wrong tree. He accuses the Selangor State government of selling off government assets in order to fund the Selangor State minimum wage policy which is to take effect next year.

Mentri Besar Khalid Ibrahim explains that the money which they would use does not come from Perbandanan Kemajuan Negeri Selangor (PKNS) but through savings from prudent fiscal management and the reduction of corruption within the state.

As Mentri Besar of Selangor, Khalid has led Selangor to post the largest state budget surplus in the state's history. By the end of 2010, the reserves stood at RM918 million, and increased state revenue by RM200 million in under six months.

The Pakatan state government has also shown their ability to practice good fiscal management. The state is being run effectively, with additional programmes to give assistance to the elderly, children of farm workers, a RM50 million micro-credit schemes and free water to name a few. Added initiatives but increasing revenue year-on-year? They must be doing something right.

Kedai 1Malaysia

The irony of the accusations levelled against the Pakatan-led state government is that Barisan Nasional are the ones who are inherently guilty of engaging in land swap deals to generate income. Further to that, they do not even bother to give the money back, but are quite content in keeping it to themselves.

Tony Pua and Nurul Izzah has shot down the whole Kedai 1Malaysia (KR1M)scheme. In the lobby of parliament on November 9th, they exposed the BN government of lying to the people that they could potentially save "up to 50%" on 250 items as compared to what one could purchase outside.

Although some items were indeed cheaper, the fact remains that you could get Tesco or Carrefour branded items at the same price or even cheaper. The RM40 million subsidy pumped into Mydin who operates the 85 stores cannot besubstantiated. So Satim Diman, who is short changing the public now?

Land Deals

Since you talked about land, let's talk about land. The federal government is very clever not to include certain allocations in the budget, so the way to finance a crony project would be to do a land-swap deal.

In 2009, the Auditor General raised questions over the RM256 million Skudai 7th Brigade Army Camp project. This was awarded in 1997 but after 15years, is only 18.3% complete. The Kausar Corporation who was awarded thisproject had already collected the construction fee in full, and was given 153 hectares of land.

Records reveal that a RM465 million bank loan was paid out for the land,which would place the land valuation in excess of RM800 million in 1997. At todaysland valuation, it could potentially be worth more than double the Selangor State government surplus. This means that Kausar took RM721 million in cash, and 153 hectares of land. The government does nothing over all these years, and the people get nothing. Isthis how this all works?

So Tuan Satim Diman, when a company in which the government awards aproject directly through closed tender, who is given land worth 4 times theproject itself, takes all the money but does not complete the project, and walkaway, that is ok?

Mahal Tali Dari Lembu

Posted: 10 Nov 2011 05:15 AM PST

Malays call this 'mahal tali dari lembu' (the rope is more expensive than the cow). But at least we can still see a cow. Better than when some allegedly spend a quarter billion ringgit with no cows to show at all!

According to this site, "the Malaysian Public service has staff strength of 1.2 million employees covering 28 schemes of service including the Federal Public Service, the State Public Services, the Joint Public Services, the Education Service, the Judiciary, the Legal Service, the Police and Armed Forces."

The Inland Revenue Board (IRB) says that 5.5 million people in the country are eligible to pay taxes but only 1.7 million are active taxpayers. As the Malaysian population stands at 28.3 million, it means only six per cent are paying taxes, which explains why the government debt is increasing while wealth disparity and income gap are worsening.

So we have 1.7 million Malaysians paying the salaries of 1.2 million employees in the civil service which means that approximately 1.5 tax-paying Malaysians is paying the salary of ONE civil servant.

And why is this so? Since the 1990's, the civil service has been expanding rapidly with accelerated growth since 2007. To give you a clearer picture, take a look at the following figures:

1990: 773,997 government employees
2000: 894,788 staff members
2010: @ 1.2 million government employees
2011: 1.3 million government employees (Source: FMT)

What about salaries? In 2005, RM25.6Billion was spent on salaries but by 2008, this figure increased to RM41.0Billion (in other words, each tax payer forked out RM22,800)

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) shows Malaysia having the highest ratio of civil servants to the population in the Asia-Pacific region at 4.68% with Indonesia having 1.79%, Philippines 1.81%, South Korea 1.85% and Thailand 2.06%. Obviously, such an over-bloated civil service is an unnecessary financial burden in Malaysia!

Some argue that such a bloated civil service exists to provide jobs for local graduates who have difficulty in finding jobs but at what cost?

Is it justified to use and to deplete public funds to pay for poor quality workforce?

Consider the opportunity costs of such a decision. What social and public goods could have been provided for the betterment of the nation?

Will over-staffing increase efficiency and productivity in any way?

Issues such as poor accountability in public expenditure, corruption and inefficiency could actually influence some to avoid tax simply because one may not get value for tax paid!. Ever so often, we come across reports on how BILLIONS (note: no longer millions) of ringgit are being squandered or the high expenditure of scandals when some of the richest states in Malaysia are also the poorest state?

Many would think, where on earth did all our taxes go to? Is it any wonder that taxpayers feel outraged and question why the necessity of paying tax if and when such payment is going to waste and not to fund social services such as roads, schools, hospitals and security?

Last year, I blogged on A President, A Queen and Two PMs where I summarized the following:

READ MORE HERE

Kredit: www.malaysia-today.net

Jumaat, 11 November 2011

Malaysia Today - Your Source of Independent News

Malaysia Today - Your Source of Independent News

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