Najib's Election Budget

Let us remind ourselves that the budget wasn’t Najib’s gift to us Malaysians. He’s not giving us anything that’s not ours already and ours to be. It’s our gift to him asking him to manage our finances carefully. And his government hasn’t done well at all. This is the 16^thdeficit budget. But we are ahead of ourselves. More of that later.

We must remind ourselves that the Finance Ministers is asking to appropriate a sum of money from the consolidated fund to be applied to specific purposes. In other words, he is doing the asking. We must ask him politely to desist from all the sneering and cynicism that only an immature and childish person does.

We expected the finance minister what more when he is also the PM to act with decorum respecting the tradition of adversarial debates in Parliament. The Opposition leader was honorable enough to hear the PM drone on, the PM is not on hand to see and hear what the MP from Permatang Pauh to see. Instead his stand in debates by correcting pronunciations and so forth. The government which trivializes and dismisses our legitimate representatives ought to be dismissed very soon.

The Finance Minister is asking OUR money. The money his government has collected from 10% of the 10-million workforce. The money he collected from oil revenue, port revenue, from our forests, from our mines. He would have collected more from our GLCs if GLCs have done their jobs well and made profits. Instead we know that most GLCs are sorry excuses for UMNO warlords to pilfer money from.

That was why he begun by asking Mr Speaker Sir, I beg to move the Bill entitled “An Act to apply a sum from the Consolidated Fund for the service of the year 2013 and to appropriate that sum for the service of that year” be read a second time.

Once we set that aside, then we can remind ourselves that the money he wants to give out isn’t his in the first place. It’s ours. His government is managing our collective money. So when you ask money from us, please do so politely. It’s the mark of immaturity and infantile behavior of the highest order, when the presentation of such a serious bill is laced with arrogance, sneering and driven by the obsession of scoring points over His Majesty’s Opposition. Whatever was positively presented earlier was completely nullified by his concluding remarks.

It’s us you need to convince not Anwar Ibrahim, Lim Kit Siang or Haji Hadi.  You certainly aren’t doing that with your arrogant showmanship.

I need to say HM’s Opposition since UMNO and its supporters forget, the opposition has legitimacy. Also, in Selangor, Penang, Kelantan and Kedah- UMNO IS the Opposition. Don’t you have legitimacy over there?

Here are some positive points about the Budget. The 2013 bajet was presented better than the 2012 budget. At least this time the finance minister didn’t waste too much time camouflaging the lack of substance with flowery language. He tells us quickly how much is next year’s proposed spending and admits this is a deficit budget. Our revenue is expected to be 208.6 billion. It increased slightly over last year’s revenue of RM207.2 billion. That is, revenue increased by 0.68%. 

Except for the unnecessary mudslinging, next year’s proposed budget is presented businesslike. That’s where the positivity ends because after that, he doesn’t understand the business of managing our economy.

The world economy.

He doesn’t seem to know what’s happening to the world economy. Therefore he can’t quite get his mind to decide how to describe the world economy. Early on he says the world economy is uncertain only in order to suggest that he can handle our economy better. At other places he says, the world economy is improving in order to suggest, our economy will also benefit from an improving world economy.

The economy outside hasn’t got any long term solutions yet. The economy of Europe is in the doldrums. They are in that position because of the policies that are being played out in this country of ours. If we continue what BN does, we will also go that route. We have low productivity, high costs, bloated and inefficient bureaucracy infested with rampant corruption. We do mega projects at questionable costing lending credibility to suspicions that all these are propped up project providing excuses for cronies to make money. The RM500 million river of life project? Wasn’t that spoken for by a company linked to Hishamudin Hussein?  What has Rosmah Mansor done to earn RM 111 million for the dubious Permata Negara Project? 

As a person coming from Pekan, I have only one hope. That come GE13, despite winning in Pekan but losing nationwide, the UMNO division office bearers will stand holding hands on the new Sultan Abu Bakar Bridge in Pekan to jump all at once into the river. They must do that in unison, because no one dares do it alone. There isn’t anyone brave enough in UMNO nowadays. The dirty work is farmed out to the UMNO youth leader who is being arrowed even by his UMNO counterparts. At other times, UMNO’s dirty work is contracted out to Ibrahim Ali, Zul Nordin, Ezam Mat Nor and the man who wants to correct the Muslim’s aqidah.

Alas, if there are crocodiles in the Pahang River, they will refuse to eat the UMNO people up fearing they in turn will lose the hunting skills.

Our Bourse reflects a healthy economy?

The optimism with our stock exchange is misplaced. 65-70% of the companies listed are not performing well at all and deserved to be PN4ed! Their shares are not traded at all. The high index is the result of the big numbers scored by a few major players. It certainly does not reflect the state of our economy. The SC must cleanse its Aegean Stables first before admitting others who want to sucker the public. Our economy is not a paper economy la Mr Finance Minister. The health of our economy must be judged in terms of the real economy- productivity, asset building, capacity building, exports, and all that.

The new IPOs he triumphantly declared will only suck in more public money and the savings people give up to buy shares will be converted into paper money. There are no direct benefits unless stock buyers sell higher than IPO prices. If the settlers haven’t sold their 800 units right after the IPO, they will have to wait a long time to see any profit. The FGV will go the KUB way. The shares in the KL Bourse will nosedive as our economy continues to be pillaged and raped by UMNO-linked players.

Affordable housing.

Who the hell is advising him on the construction of affordable homes? The homes will be constructed by PR1MA with an average price of RM 150,000. Who can afford the houses at that price? Our new graduates earning RM2500 pcm?  That’s all a load of BS. When he announces that PR1MA will build 6000 new homes in Negeri Sembilan, I have to ask my friends where? NS practically has no squatters. People already have homes in Seremban, Rembau, Kuala Kelawang, Nilai, Jelebu or wherever. The pressure of demand for housing is in the Klang Valley where people work. Even SPNB has practically surrendered to build houses in Klang Valley.

So I ask where is the logic to build houses in Negeri Sembilan. Unless of course the real reason is to enrich PR1MA which is headed by Jamaludin Jarjis. Najib has got his priorities wrong.

It will be easy for Pakatan Rakyat to repair the damage done by Najib’s government. It’s no big deal. We have a simple rule. If we want to damage the country, give it to BN. if we want the make the country worse off, let BN do the repairing.

Why is UMNO/BN so obsessed with having to know what is PR’s shadow cabinet? We don’t even have BN’s shadow cabinet because they are not sure they will be in parliament come GE13.

To be continued…..

Posted by sakmongkol AK47