BN leaders are getting fatter, the people's 'roti canai' is getting thinner

Has the time come for the nation of 28 million people to rhyme “Hickory, dickory, dock”?

It appears very clear that while the slogging citizens are borrowing to keep living, our leaders are borrowing to spend, spend, and keep spending.

Analysts and observers are cautioning that the country, if not on the verge, it is already bankrupting. And the borrowings are done solely by the decision makers within the corridors of power while citizens are gasping to keep up with the promise after promise of foreign investments that will overflow the larder.

But the country is in the red. Our spending has far outgrown our investments. And all the borrowing is for all kinds of mega this and mega that. And even the way the BN government spends at the State Elections would make Hollywood billionaires blush.

Meanwhile, anyone who cries out in alarm will be branded as anti-government. He or she will be accused of even wanting to grab the Prime Minister’s post. Or that political party will be run over with accusations of misleading the voters.

Fundamental questions and concerns are brushed off as being simplistic. The rakyat is drummed through the main stream media that the government is far better off than its neighboring countries. And that development comes with a price. A price that the rakyat eventually will have to pay for the borrowed investments.

The rakyat – the wage earner and simple businessman meanwhile cuts corners. When there are no more corners to cut, they short-change. So it is no surprise that the usual glass of the teh tarik is thinner, the indispensable roti canai – the working class fodder, is larger in size but thinner in dimension, the fried kueyteow has less prawns and taugeh or stumps of the sawi and the nasi lemak bungkus does not have ikan bilis but its paste mashed with cilli api.

Have the ministers and BN decision makers walked the streets patronised cherry tree stalls to figure this out? No. They are talking from the velvety cushions of penthouses and five-star studded meals. “Tighten your belts” they admonish the complaining rakyat.

The rate at which the government has been borrowing as revealed by none other than Bank Negara is causing spasmodic palpitation for the rakyat. At this rate, and if BN loses the GE-13, the in-coming political champs will be left with insurmountable problems that will make it almost impossible to perform.

What do we do? What can we do? Will we be allowed to do? Or is the rakyat totally disqualified to do anything to stop the raiding of the larder. Somebody please pray tell!

What use is it to have three or four multi-billionaires who offer jobs for a few thousand when the entire nation of people are living a nightmarish day to day experience in making the Ringgit stretch?

If all the spending from borrowings these past 25 years has today pinned the rakyat on a stretcher, what hope is there when the leaders holler, “we are developing this nation for the future.”?

Indeed then hickory, dickory, dock the clock has begun to tick-tock for a disastrous end. No? Then tell us.

- J. D. Lovrenciear is a reader of Malaysia Chronicle