The crude art of deception

This is a response to a commentary in an English daily in which Malaysians are told to get used to life without subsidies.

COMMENT

Last week, an English daily published an editorial exhorting Malaysians to learn to live with high fuel prices. The title—“Stop grumbling and find solutions instead”—is appropriate to the scolding tone of the article, the kind of stuff we have come to expect from a BN-affiliated paper whenever the government makes an unpopular move.

It says we must stop regarding government subsidies as our birthright and sacrifice our conveniences for the sake of energy conservation and to help the government reduce the nation’s fiscal deficit.

Those are valid points. We cannot go on as if we will always have petroleum and we have to start doing something about the ballooning national debt as well as the frightening budget deficit.

However, the article gives the impression that only the general public deserves a tongue lashing. That’s deceptive.

Economists and opposition leaders have been calling for prudent spending for years. Many have pointed out that the nation has been running on a deficit budget since the Asian financial crisis of the late 1990s. These voices reached fever pitch in the run-up to the 2008 general election and have not died down.

Why has it taken so long for the BN government to heed these voices? Indeed, instead of listening to reason all those many years ago, it got itself entangled in the Port Klang Free Zone financial mismanagement and similar scandals and went on to plan grandiose and unnecessary projects like the Warisan Tower.

Every year and for years, the Auditor-General has been reporting the loss of billions of ringgit in wastage and corruption. Is anyone doing anything about this? Idris Jala, MACC, Paul Low, pray tell.

We have lost count of how many times the government, after overspending, has run back to Parliament to ask for a supplementary budget of millions of ringgit. Just last July, it asked for RM12 million, which the BN majority in Parliament cheerfully approved.

And how did the Election Commission manage to spend RM400 million to run one general election in a country of 28 million people, not all of whom are voters?

Since the said daily was so concerned about energy consumption, let us give Tenaga Nasional Berhad (TNB) a mention. The government has told us that the company is running at a loss. It boggles the mind to think of a losing concern paying bonuses worth millions of ringgit to its directors.

Reduce monopolistic practices

The daily also tells us to be psychologically prepared to pay market prices because subsidies aren’t supposed to last forever. But then, competition between suppliers is one of the defining characteristics of a free market. So let us allow competition against TNB before scolding consumers for their reluctance to pay the market price for electricity.

Subsidies are not always a bad thing. They help the poor cope with the cost of living and thereby discourage, for example, petty thefts committed out of desperation. Corruption, however, feeds the greed of a few. But instead of coming down hard on the greedy, the government has decided to make life worse for the poor.

Yes, we must train ourselves not to be too dependent on government. Unfortunately, corruption and the monopoly of key industries have made costs sky rocket, putting many citizens at the mercy of the government.

If the government really wants to improve the national economy, the most obvious first measure is to curb corruption and reduce wastage. And then it should reduce monopolistic practices.

With clean management and an efficient delivery system, there is a good chance that citizens will have enough in their pockets to accept the reduction of subsidies without complaining.

G Vinod is a FMT team member.