Unrealistic ETP shows Najib in deep political 'quicksand'

Najib's ETP - false feel-good factor?

Wong Choon Mei, Malaysia Chronicle

Pakatan Rakyat leaders have expressed worry about the political ‘quicksand’ Prime Minister Najib Razak appears to have fallen into, warning that he could not go on “singing the APCO written songs” while the economy rotted.

“The real danger is that the country is going nowhere until there is a determined effort to implement real reforms. Each day it becomes clearer that Najib does not have the strength to get out of the quicksand he is caught in,” warned DAP adviser Lim Kit Siang in a statement.

“He cannot go on much longer singing the APCO written songs. These are no longer being reported in the Utusan, an organ that in the scheme of things is supposed to sing songs desired by Najib. Now that it is openly becoming a mouthpiece for Mahathir and Perkasa, the end may not be far away.”

The return of Mahathir

Indeed, signs have emerged that Najib is no longer in control of his Umno party after briefly locking horns with former premier Mahathir Mohamad over the sort of social and economic direction Malaysia should take.

Mahathir and ultra-Malay rights group Perkasa

Mahathir, who leads the powerful conservative faction in Umno, is not keen to see the economic plans he introduced when he was prime minister changed or revamped. His resistance has been blamed for Najib’s failure to implement crucially needed socio and economic reforms.

A day ago, the Najib administration unveiled a humongous RM1.4 trillion Economic Transformation Programme aimed at revitalizing the economy over 10 years and propelling Malaysia into the ranks of the world’s developed nations by 2020.

But the plan was immediately ridiculed as being unrealistic given that the country faced sharply plunging FDI and a slowing economy. Outraged, many Malaysians also accused Najib of trying to create a false feel-good factor with glitzy but hollow public relations staged by his by-now notorious communications adviser APCO.

“The mind-boggling and totally unrealistic pie in the sky nature of the ETP and the linked announcements may well become Malaysia’s version of Mao’s GREAT LEAP FORWARD fiasco that was built on unrealistic targets and dubious performance indicators,” said Kit Siang.

50% of RM1.4 trillion to be "normal economic leakage"

Idris Jala, Najib’s hand-picked minister overseeing the ETP, had just months ago warned Malaysia faced bankruptcy like Greece by 2019 if it did not cut subsidies and reduce government debt.

Glitzy ETP launch

Yet on Monday, Idris expressed confidence the RM1.4 trillion of investment projects on offer would be snapped up by investors. Without giving any details, he said 60 percent would come from the private sector, 32 percent from government-linked companies and 8 percent from government.

According to Lembah Pantai MP Nurul Izzah Anwar, the lack of transparency rang an immediate warning bell.

"Based on our past 'national expenditure pricing' experience, could we assume that the following breakdown of the total investment amount of RM1.376 trillion (RM 1,376,000,000,000,000) will be as follows: Legal fees: (2%) RM27.52 billion; consultancy fees (8%) RM110.08billion; facilitation fees (10%) RM137.6 billion; overpricing costs (30%) RM 412.8 billion," Nurul said in a statement.

"Does this mean that the total fees and costs payable of RM 688 billion or 50% of the investment total is to be considered as a normal economic leakage, leaving the remaining 50% to actually be invested in the ETP projects?"

Kit Siang

To Kit Siang, the ETP also signaled a return to ‘big government’ rather than empowering the private sector.

“To resort to what is obviously a system of central planning — with unrealistic targets, dubious statistics to show “performance”, picking “winners”, maintaining constraints to growth via quotas and a system of approvals together with subsidies to corporate entities (both GLCs and selected private corporate tycoons) — is totally in contradiction to the announced intent to let the private sector act freely," said Kit Siang.

“Indeed, the system the country appears to be slipping into has many of the features that brought about the collapse of the Soviet economy in the late 1980s. It is also salient to note that the remarkable success of China and its modernization program which can be attributed to the dismantling of central planning is being largely ignored.”