National Budget 2011: A View from a Sabahan-Malaysian

by Datuk Jema Khan

The main beneficiaries of the 2011 Budget are the civil servants, imams and village heads. These are what UMNO would consider their vote bank. It would be naive to think that Datuk Seri Najib Razak would not pander to this group. He wants to win the next general elections after all.

Though there is much talk of the need for private sector participation in the economy, this Budget does not, to my mind, adequately reflect that. For me as a member of the tax-paying private sector, there is no discernible benefit for me personally.

But then again some may say that I can benefit from the mega projects that are proposed as I may be construed to belong to the crony part of UMNO’s vote bank. All I have to do is get off my bum and go and schmooze the powers that be for a piece of the action.

Menara Merdeka will dwarf Mahathir's Twin Towers

Should I go for the 100-storey Warisan Merdeka building estimated to cost RM5 billion and to be completed in 2015 or the RM40 billion MRT project which will last from 2011 to 2020? In all likelihood with crony participation, the costs can easily double and the time period substantially lengthened. A few per cent in either project will easily secure my retirement so I won’t need a pension.

But perhaps since I hail from Sabah and was partially responsible for creating UMNO’s vote bank there, I should look for projects there. Should I go for the RM3 billion eco-nature resort in Karambunai, the aquaculture projects or perhaps the road and other infrastructural projects in Sabah?

These too could set me up for life. But no, I don’t think I have the right RM2 company to do it. I also have a legitimate economics and accounting degree and more than 20 years of international business experience behind me, which tends to be a handicap in these matters.

Perhaps the Talent Corporation may benefit me since the government wants to bring back more Malaysians from abroad? Perhaps I should do what Tan Sri Hassan Merican, our former chairman and CEO of Petronas, is doing and just cross the border so that the Talent Corporation may then come and woo me later. But perhaps I better wait and see what they do with Tan Sri Hassan first, since if his talent, integrity and service to this nation are not recognised then I really have no chance at all.

Perhaps I should go to Penang or Kelantan which appear to really need private sector participation? I may have a greater role to play in the states that have been overlooked by the Federal Budget. At least I won’t have to compete with the more established cronies and may actually find profitable opportunities to plant, build or develop something that will put to use my limited talents.

Setting aside my cynicism, actually all I was hoping for from the 2011 Budget was for the government to substantially reduce the deficit. After all, from all the programmes that are planned, aren’t the private sector supposed to be the ones driving growth in the future?

What the private sector wants is less tax, better access to trained human capital, a stable currency, government that is efficient, better security, a fair judiciary and most of all, less corruption. The real private sector will continue to be defensive until this is in place.

While I understand the need to secure the vote bank and to use the Budget for that purpose, it is unfortunate that the Budget was not able to show us that the government was really walking the talk and leaving it more to the private sector to grow the economy.

While I gained nothing from the Budget, I suppose I didn’t lose anything either except for my share of the RM45 billion deficit which only works out to about RM1,600 (RM45 billion divided by 28 million population) for me, for this year. So coupled with the RM330 billion that the government already owes from last year, I am only liable for about RM13,400 (RM375 billion/28 million). Oops, might be a lot more: forgot about the wife and kids.–www.themalaysianinsider.com