An election budget

PM Najib presenting his third budget

Prime Minister Dato’ Seri Mohd. Najib Tun Razak presented his third budget. As the seventh finance minister, he offered a lot of direct goodies for the rakyat. Majority of Malaysians would benefit directly from the Federal Government 2012 budget.

Its part of ‘National Transformation Policy’. The agenda of NKRA and NKEA would be continued and followed through. “No groups shall be excluded”.

First on the agenda, subsidies are in and shall remain. Subsidies for rice, sugar, cooking oil and flour are 60sen, 20sen, RM2.25 and 55sen respectively. For fuels, RON 95 and diesel subsidies stand at 85 and 86 sen per litres, respectively. Cooking gas subsidy is RM 21.42 for every cylinder.

School fees would be abolished completely.

For those who are earning below RM3,000 per month, the ‘First Home Scheme’ launched at March 2011 house price ceiling would be raised from RM220,000 to RM400,000.

Under Perumahan Rakyat 1 Malaysia (PR1MA), 1880 affordable homes be build in Putrajaya and Bandar Tun Razak. 7,700 units would be build in Cyberjaya, Putra Heights, Seremban, Damansara and Bukit Raja, where the 1,000 sq ft apartment would be sold at RM150,000 instead of market price of RM200,000.

SPNB would continue to ensure more Malaysians have access to affordable homes. These houses would cost RM 45,000 each where RM 20,000 subsidy would be allocated per unit. For the 190,000 orang asli, RM 20 million has been allocated for them to be relocated to new areas.

Appreciating FELDA schemes have been around since 50 years ago, RM 400 million would be allocated for the upgrading of water supply to these areas.

Security is also high on the agenda. Royal Malaysian Police would be allocated an special provision of RM 200 million for improving police science and investigations, on of a RM 442 million development budget.

Special provisions are made for the security services. RM500 million be allocated for ‘Army Care’ program, where living quarters would be upgraded. One off payments would be issued to 48,000 former special constables, auxilliary policemen, home guards, women special constables and border guards.

RM 50 million allocated for training for the 175,000 ex-servicemen is designed to alleviate their livelihood when they rejoin the civilian life.

The civil servants would benefit from the policy of ‘Civil Service Transformation’. The 600,000 government pensioners would be expecting bigger pie where the revised pension would come to force and RM 600 million has been carved out for this.

Teachers shall benefit from the revised remuneration scheme. 300,000 teachers would benefit when the graduate and non graduate teachers get increase in their pay. Example is for teachers at DG48 who are currently drawing RM 6.325.42, would expect to have a ceiling income at RM 8,710. For the non graduate teachers at the grade of DG34, they could expect a ceiling pay of RM 5,370 instead of RM 3,860.52 now. Their process to get increment and promotion would be shortened.

As promised, quality of life and access to services would be improved for all Malaysians across the board, especially in the rural areas. Special funds would be allocated for professionals to start their practice and services in rural areas.

PM Najib took pot shots against the Opposition for their recent ‘discovery of a Welfare Nation’. He said “BN Government has done this all along. We shall continue to care for the rakyat”.

The Federal Goverment budget for 2012 stands at RM 232.8 billion. Of that, RM 51.2 billion is for development and RM 181.6 billion is allocated for operations. The budget is designed for the Malaysian economy to grow between 5-6% for next year.

PM Najib also announced that 17 more services subsector would be liberalised by next year.

Even politicians are not excluded, be it the ruling party of the Opposition. He proposed a review of the allowances for all elected representatives.

Several rebates and exemptions are being proposed.

His parting shot, “BN government will not pander to any pressures. We know what we’re doing. We are confident all these are unlike the insincerity, intellectual hypocrite and spiritual recklessness of certain parties”.

A lot of ‘Feel Good Factor’ designed for 2012. This is an election budget indeed.

- bigdogdotcom