This anti-meritocracy budget must be rejected

 

I know most of you will agree with this – Budget 2021 must be rejected.

Most of you might be angry with EPF and the moratorium. For me, that is a non-issue as there is a solid argument for both sides. But my reasoning on why the budget should be rejected is different – this silly government is focusing too much on creating jobs and providing training, instead of rewarding hard-working Malaysians to work even harder.

My argument is simple. It is not the government’s responsibility to create jobs and provide training for the jobless. It has been proven time and time again that the most efficient way to ensure effective training and quality jobs is by leaving it to the private sector. In short, instead of the government allocating billions of ringgit to the jobseekers for jobseeking and training, use the money to help the companies and entrepreneurs by creating a more efficient free-market environment.

You don’t believe me? Then believe Mitt Romney because he is the one who said, “Government does not create jobs.” If you want to look at a more academic view, Mark Ahlseen from King’s College argued convincingly that any job-creation driven by the government is ineffective because of the negative effects that come from having to fund it.

Sorry if I sound like a broken record but based on my experience, if you work hard, there is no reason you cannot get a job. Some of the jobless though, are not worthy of even an entry-level job, while most if not all cannot even write a decent resume. Those who lose their jobs are those who don’t work hard enough to be invaluable to their bosses, Covid-19 or not.

The government’s philosophy of doing so much for the people who do not take risks and relatively ignoring hardworking entrepreneurs and job creators has created a generation of jobless people who are lazy and entitled.

While this new norm provides the government with the opportunity to reshape our economy to reward the hardworking entrepreneurs, this budget instead focuses on spoon-feeding them with more jobs and training.

Hundreds of millions are going to be wasted on countless agencies providing free skills training to hundreds of thousands of unemployed. Billions more will be wasted just to incentivise companies to hire more people. Yes, the wage subsidy might have helped companies to retain millions of workers, but perhaps you should have given us the option to decide for ourselves whether we want to use that money to retain our workers or for more effective investments like on automation.

To take it even further, the government now is actually going to create 50,000 jobs in government & GLCs out of thin air. No country in the world is doing this. Do we even need those jobs?

I am not sure what the government intends to achieve with this strategy. Do they expect that providing free training on pretty much every skill under the sun can suddenly solve our unemployment issue? That throwing millions if not billions to train hundreds of thousands of people who are so used to being spoon-fed will suddenly make them productive members of society? Some things cannot change overnight.

Now imagine if we reject this budget and put a stop to all of these unproven ‘rakyat’ centric strategies. Instead, redirect the money to entrepreneurs and middle-class Malaysians who might want to be entrepreneurs. The value we will create by this assistance will actually help drive the economy, be it via innovation, better products, higher consumer spending – all while making Malaysia proud on the global stage.

Instead, we double down on helping these jobless, entitled people to get jobs and training – something they must be able to do on their own.

Like good businessman, we should see Covid-19 as an opportunity, not just a crisis. This is an opportunity for us to reset, to be a merit-based society that assists people who are willing to work hard even though they might be from the middle or upper class. If we do that, we will rise again after the pandemic as a modern, free-market economy that is respected globally.

For too long, we have spoon-fed our people with jobs, training and much more. This budget pushed it even further, putting job-creation and training as the centrepiece of their budget. This spoon-feeding must stop and for that, this budget should be rejected wholeheartedly.

Lee Teng Chan is an FMT reader

The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of MMKtT.