Real goodies missing in Najib’s basket

People had hoped that premier Najib Tun Razak would announce a slew of action that would improve their lives; instead he abolished the ISA, which has little impact.

COMMENT

All week, the public was thinking that Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak would announce some measures to be taken by the government that will, in substance, increase the efficiency of governance and government.

They hoped those measures will translate into immediate increase in disposable income. They hoped, among others, that Najib would announce the:

restructuring of the GLCs (government-linked companies) including Khazanah (Nasional Bhd) so that they won’t become governments unto themselves. Now that 15,000 employees of MAS have threatened industrial action, Khazanah has been doing some cloak-and-dagger corporate moves.

• replacement of laggard key government officials with those with abilities.

• removal of structural impediments to transparency and accountability such as removing OSA (Official Secrets Act).

• shaking up of institutions that deliver justice and the law such as the police and the judiciary.

• stronger measures on corruption including the conviction of the big guns.

Liberty-enhancing policies

There was also hope that Najib would further initiate things like direct transfer of money (oil money) to the public like what the Singapore government did during its recent general election.

Those states making mountains of money from petroleum royalties should distribute the money to citizens of the state.

Felda Corporation which made lots of money could perhaps start giving out money to Felda settlers.

Now that would be the real goodies that would certainly induce the recipients to jump up in uncontrollable euphoria while proclaiming Najib to be “da man!”

These aside, we certainly need some substantive liberty-enhancing policies from the current administration that would differentiate the Najib administration positively from previous ones.

By liberty-enhancing policies, I mean policies that reduce dependency on the government.

There are also some economic pressures which the government needs to address that have political ramifications.

Inflationary pressures that cause the price of essential goods to rise make people more dependent on the government.

Abolishing OSA more impactful

Compared to all these hopes, Najib’s announcement involving the Internal Security Act (ISA) and the Printing Presses and Publications Act (PPPA) fell flat.

An announcement of government actions on the above points would have been more impactful.

Important as they are, I think the ISA and PPPA’s impact on governance enhancement and thereafter productivity is outstretched and indirect.

The good intent of abolishing the ISA appears to be blunted by the forewarning that two new Acts will replace the ISA.

A person arbitrarily defined as a terrorist can still be detained without trial in open court.

The empowering act of Article 149, the fountain from which springs ISA-like enactments, is till there and remains the overarching enabling repressive Act.

I was thinking maybe the removal of the OSA.

The OSA is more insidious than the ISA. It prevents any public-spirited citizen of this country from discovering the rationale of many government decisions on tender awards, selection process and so on.

Now THAT, I thought, would have more far-reaching impact on the voters than the ISA.

The writer is a former Umno state assemblyman and a FMT columnist. This is an excerpt from his blog sakmongkolak47.