Malaysia Today - Your Source of Independent News
Malaysia Today - Your Source of Independent News |
| Time to reverse federal squeeze on state powers Posted: 30 Jan 2013 11:19 AM PST A major missing link in political discourse in the run-up to the 13th general election is the debate on decentralisation. The Malaysian polity has been dominated by the process of centralisation or concentration of powers by the federal government for the last 55 years. In the first part of this article, I will explain the process of centralisation under the federal government; in the second part, I will argue the case for decentralisation. Constitutionally, Malaysia is a federation where powers are shared between the central government and state governments. The constitution stipulates the different areas to legislate through the Federal List, State List and Shared List in Articles 74-79. States have legislative powers over very limited matters such as land, forestry and Islam, while the federal government can legislate on almost all matters in areas concerning education, finance, trade and commerce, defence, diplomacy and national security. This has severely clipped state government powers. The Shared List between the state and federal governments covers social welfare, town and country planning, drainage and irrigation and public health. In this respect, federal law will prevail over state law in the event of any inconsistency. Issues of increasing importance, such as water works, land and local government, which used to be under the state governments, have been moved to the Shared List. This was implemented through constitutional amendments. In fact, the constitution has seen 42 amendments involving 650 articles. As a result, constitution scholars have often commented that the spirit of the constitution and federation has been seriously diluted. The centralisation of power is not limited to legislative matters. The federal government has garnered tremendous power through administrative centralisation. Land matters were supposedly under state jurisdiction. However, states are increasingly losing such authority to the federal government.
The federal government also centralised power by means of the privatisation of state assets. For example, local councils used to run the sewerage system. However, when the federal government privatised this service to Indah Water Konsortium, the authority was forfeited and went to a federal-controlled company. Recent water-supply controversies in Selangor, which involve political and commercial interests, can be viewed as a continuous attempt to centralise power by the federal government. Water has always been under state jurisdiction. In Selangor, the federal government intervened through the National Services Water Commission, which is chaired by a federal minister. The previous BN state government lost part of its power by privatising water assets to Syabas, a company controlled by the federal government. The Penang government has been lucky to avoid such a fate because a state-controlled entity operates the waterworks. Financial constraints State governments also face fiscal constraints. They can only collect revenue from quit rent, land premiums and timber or oil royalties. T Typically state governments spend less than RM1 billion in the annual budgets. The federal government's budget, however, has ballooned to more than RM240 billion annually. States are not allowed to collect any other form of taxes and this has severely curtailed their capacity to do more for the rakyat. The state governments in the past were able to guarantee loans for state-linked companies. Now, the federal government has prohibited such power, further clipping the financial wings of state governments. Under such dire constraints, state governments are in no position to resist the temptation to give up some of their powers in exchange for monetary grants. A case in point was how state governments lost their local government authority to the federal government, one step at a time. Read more at: http://hornbillunleashed.wordpress.com/2013/01/31/40956/
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| Will Hindraf and Indians fall for the BN’s election bait? Posted: 30 Jan 2013 11:16 AM PST The recent lifting of the ban on Hindraf has resulted in a flood of commentary about how this and other measures undertaken by Najib Razak and the Barisan Nasional government to recapture Indian support through various conciliatory measures may impact on Hindraf and the larger Indian population (see here ). The consensus among many commentators is that the BN already has the Indian vote in the bag and that the mending of relations with Hindraf and the opening up of the national purse strings to address Indian shortfalls in education and economy – even if in a limited way – will be sufficient to bring the critical Indian vote in many federal and state constituencies back into the BN fold. This rush to judgement is not only premature; it is most probably wrong. This is because it underestimates the sense of deprivation, injustice and anger felt by the Indian community which has arisen from four decades of BN-sanctioned institutionalized racism and discrimination. It also fails to take into account the passion and commitment that has driven Waytha Moorthy and his Hindraf colleagues who have pursued, with much personal sacrifice, the cause of equal rights and opportunities for all Malaysians, especially for Malaysian Indians. Ever since their rally in Kuala Lumpur on Nov 25, 2007 and the 2008 elections in which they were one of the major catalysts for the political tsunami that occurred, Hindraf leaders and supporters have been victims of a BN campaign to demonize, persecute and wipe out the movement. Surely, Hindraf will be the first to see this ban removal – politically timed on the eve of Thaipusam – for what it is: a political ploy to win Indian votes rather than a change of heart towards the movement and its stand on Indian rights.
Despite the paucity of official statistics, there is sufficient quantitative and qualitative evidence to show that poor Indians as well as those from middle-class backgrounds have fallen behind their non-Indian counterparts (with the exception of Orang Asli) because of racial discrimination, bureaucratic red tape and lack of access to governmental resources. There has been little evidence so far of fundamental changes in national policies affecting minority communities. The hard reality which Hindraf is acutely aware of is that the Home Minister can very well impose another ban on the movement once the elections are over and that the treasury and other civil service doors are shut again on Indians when the movement is no longer seen as useful in Umno's effort to retain political supremacy. The commentators who argue that Hindraf should see the election concessions to Indians as representing real change as well as those who are predicting that Hindraf will align itself with BN may well believe that it is in the best interest of Hindraf and the Indian community to accept whatever benefits or sweeteners are thrown to the Indian electorate. They may be convinced that challenging Umno's political hegemony and the racist principles upon which this hegemony is founded is futile. Better to make hay while the sun shines and to be a small time beneficiary to the Umno big money and huge political clout juggernaut than to be a principled dissident. |
After Pakatan Rakyat took over Penang, for example, Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng proposed to convert existing landed leasehold houses to freehold status in an attempt to increase quit rent income for the state government. This proposal hit a snag at the federal level. The National Land Council, chaired by Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak, rejected it.
he federal government collects all taxes and the exorbitant Petronas oil money to fund development and operations.
Many from the minority communities are well aware that the BN has a long history of sweet, and often, double talk. Indians especially have been victims of BN's unfulfilled promises made election after election ever since the country obtained its independence. In the past 50 years of Alliance and Barisan rule – and despite MIC participation in the two coalitions – the Indian position in economy and society has worsened steadily by whatever indicator of socio-economic and political development is used.| You are subscribed to email updates from Malaysia Today - Your Source of Independent News To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
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