Prime Minister Najib Razak is starting to win for himself a name for being a great master illusionist for his overly grand financial schemes.
Earlier this week, he announced 9 new initiatives under the Economic Transformation Programme amounting to RM2.77 billion in investments, which he claimed would bring about a Gross National Income of RM18.67 billion and this will in turn generate 36,595 jobs by the year 2020.
Prior to this, Najib had also announced 70 potential investment projects bringing about a total sum of RM106.4 billion, generating 298,865 job opportunities with the citizens' GNI amounting to RM153.83 billion by the year 2020. All ths during a short span of time, that is from October 2010 to April 2011.
Be careful, don't blindly chase after shares
The PM did not cut through his own hype or warn against the underlying economic prospects. His mind-boggling numbers gave rise to concern that laymen investors might succumb to greed and punt on the stocks of his ETP firms.
According to PAS Strategist Dzulkefly Ahmad, Najib may be announcing these figures to give the rakyat or poulace especially the business community a feel-good factor before he calls for a snap general election, widely expected to be held within months.
"The announcements are coming fast and furious now," Dzulkefly told Malaysia Chronicle.
He also cautioned Malaysians that Najib's figures were only "paper wealth" and they should be wary of blinding chasing stocks.
The macroeconomic situation was also not promision going into the future. Many research house have reduced the growth forecast for the developed nations due to soaring world oil prices. Malaysia's economy will also suffer as it is dependent on developed markets such as US, Singapore and China to buy its goods.
Even so, Najib's announcements has boosted the share prices of those firms involved in the EPP-ETP projects. Among these are government-linked companies as well as corporations with strong ties to the UMNO leaders.
An example of a company with a tiny share capital whose share price more than doubled thanks to Najib's announcement is Tricubes Bhd, which was loss-making prior to being included in the Economic Transformation Programme.
According to Dzulkefly, the share price of Tricubes jumped from 5.5 sen on 18th April this year to 32.5 sen on 22nd April after Najib announced that the firm would get the 1 Malaysia Email project.
After a few days, the share price started to belly flop and is currently hovering at around 10.5 sen. Tricubes is also under the GN3 category, meaning that it has a debt problem and it needs to re-structure its debt repayments.
Too mind-boggling
To PKR assemblyman for Teja Chang Lih Kang, the man-on-the-street are unable to feel or experience the benefits of these EPP-ETP projects. Many do not understand the whirl of jargon Najib is fond of using. His bag of arconyms for his projects have also created much public confusion.
"Many of the rakyat are feeling the hardship of putting decent food on the table due to the high cost of living and they don't appreciate his boasting," Chang told Malaysia Chronicle.
"To them, his announcements are empty slogans that will never materialise. If they did, Malaysia would be very rich but these people are suffering. So to them, how can this be true."
According to other pundits, it was the business-savvy who tended to be swayed by greed over the huge numbers offered by Najib rather the ordinary folk, who tended to trust their own instincts.
"It is odd that sometimes those who should know better are more easily fooled. But not always. If you check around the financial circles, most are not impressed. They say the same thing, it is pie in the sky or it is election bait. And the more projects he reveals, the more the people don't believe him," PKR vice president Tian Chua told Malaysia Chronicle.
- Malaysia Chronicle
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