Najib draws laughter for attacking Pakatan plan on 'financial' grounds

Not in the same league as main political rival Anwar Ibrahim in terms of mental agillity, it finally occurred to Prime Minister Najib Razak it might be a good idea to lash out at the Pakatan Rakyat's 100-day reform plan that has worried his ruling BN coalition since it was unveiled a month ago.

"It is quite silly to call Pakatan populist and irresponsible just because he has no answers of his own. Can Najib promise to repeal the ISA, abolish the Publications and Printing Presses Act, restore confidence in the judiciary and institutions like the Election Commission, anti-graft agencies by making them independent and not at the beck and call of the ruling elite? Najib would never dare," PKR vice president Tian Chua toldMalaysia Chronicle.

"The power is already is in his hand to reform Malaysia. But he is not doing anything and he cannot deny he has failed to do anything."

Najibnomics

Indeed, Najib's main rationale for rejecting the Pakatan reform plan was that it did not take into account the limitations of the "country’s finances".

“We cannot take such a populist approach to the point where we sacrifice our country’s future. We cannot afford to do that, it would be irresponsible to the point where our children and our grandchildren will pay the price and suffer. As a matter of fact, we do not even have to wait for our children or grandchildren, according to our calculations, if these promises are implemented without taking into account the country’s finances, it would just take two years,”Malaysian Insider reported Najib as saying.

Yet, his own administration has projected bankruptcy for Malaysia within 8 years or by 2019 if he did not cut government subsidies on consumer essentials.

Economic experts have pointed out it made more sense to save Malaysia and restore investors' confidence by tackling the real problem, which was large-scale high-level government corruption and wastage that had caused billions of ringgit to be leaked out from the financial system and siphoned out of the country.

BN has lost and Pakatan deserves a chance

At the Pakatan Rakyat national congress last month, the three partners - DAP, PAS and PKR - had unveiled a new 10-point manifesto that they promised would be executed within 100 days of their wresting control of Putrajaya - the administrative capital of Malaysia's federal government.

The 100-day promises are:

1. A restructure of institutions including the Elections Commission (EC), the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC), the Attorney-General’s Chambers and the Royal Malaysian Police. During a debate on the policy framework, DAP’s Anthony Loke said PR bring the MACC under the purview of Parliament.

2. A repeal of the Internal Security Act (ISA)

3. Instruct Khazanah Berhad, Employees’ Provident Fund (EPF) and other government bodies to take over highway assets from the concessionaires in order to abolish the toll system.

4. A restructure of the country’s subsidies, to lessen subsidies given to the private sector (such as the RM19 billion in gas subsidies given to independent power producers) and transferring these to subsidies for the man on the street.

5. Acknowledging the role and sacrifices of civil servants by studying the current pay schemes and increasing the incentives for teachers by RM500 a month

6. Transferring private water concessions to the government

7. Offering free wireless Internet access to those in urban and semi-urban areas

8. Cancelling Felda Plantations and opening up its farms to second- and third generation Felda settlers.

9. Increasing oil royalty payments to Sabah, Sarawak, Terengganu and Kelantan to 20 per cent from 5 per cent currently.

10. Formation of a Royal Commission to solve the problem of illegal immigrants and citizenship issues in Sabah and Sarawak.

courtesy of Malaysia Chronicle