Stop political vengeance, Lim tells BN

The Barisan Nasional federal government should stop exacting political revenge if it hopes to attain developed nation status by 2020, says Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng.

GEORGE TOWN: Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng has called on the Barisan Nasional federal government to stop its political vengeance for the sake of nation-building and socio- economic prosperity.

Lim said exacting political revenge would only wreck Malaysia’s hopes of attaining developed nation status by 2020.

He described the Malacca state government’s recent closure of the Jonker Walk night market as BN’s vindictive action to exact revenge for losing seats in the last general election.

“Such action does not augur well for responsible economic policy-making and nation-building,” said Lim,also the DAP secretary-general, in a statement.

He said any attempt to divide and discriminate Malaysians would further damage the country’s economy and encourage more corruption.

He added that rampant graft was evident via the nation’s highest illicit outflow of funds per capita in the world and the disturbing rise in the federal government debt from RM266bil at the end of 2007 to RM502bil at end of 2012.

Hence, he said BN’s focus on wreaking political vengeance would only wreck Malaysia’s transformation plan to become a high-income developed economy in seven years.

He said this was especially so if the government failed to focus on economic reforms centred on the nation’s comparative and competitive advantage as well as diversifying growth sectors.

He claimed that the World Bank was spot-on when it said that while Malaysia’s economy would grow by 5.1% in 2013 and 2014, the country should speed up structural reforms to ensure a diversified and dynamic economy.

The World Bank said over-reliance on commodities such as crude oil, natural gas, rubber and palm oil, whose prices had dropped, rather than on manufacturing had put pressure on growth rates on a commodity-exporting country like Malaysia.

“Malaysia needs to accelerate structural reforms to ensure that its economy remains diversified and dynamic,” said the Bagan MP.

Mindless anger

He said the challenge now was whether the federal government could implement sound economic policies or would it still be a captive of its mindless anger at becoming a “minority” government following loss of popular votes by winning 47% against 51% for Pakatan Rakyat in the recent general election.

He added that such short-sightedness could be seen by the federal government’s refusal to leverage in on existing world-class and internationally accepted manufacturing sectors in Penang such as electrical and electronic, medical devices and aerospace.

Lim said the government appeared to focus on political partisanships by neglecting states with comparative and competitive advantages such as Penang.

He said the government was now pouring money in building up from scratch manufacturing sectors in states other than those ruled by Pakatan.

“This has contributed to high-tech manufacturing declining and commodities increasing as Malaysia’s exports,” he added.

Lim said to reach its goal of becoming a high-income nation, Malaysia would need to continue building skills and institutions that would support further diversification towards higher productive investments through improvements in human capital.

Policies such as allowing only those working in the Iskandar region the benefit of the flat 15% personal income tax rate, he said “is discriminatory and must be extended throughout nationally.”