KUALA LUMPUR: Discussions about rent-seeking behaviour should be expanded to the country’s heartlands to gain a deeper understanding of the issue, argues the co-founder of a think tank.
Speaking at the Now Everyone Prospers (NEP) forum here, Iman Research’s Dina Zaman said that travelling to rural areas would help researchers find out more about how rent-seeking affects such communities, adding that it was an issue which all Malaysians face.
Rent-seeking is an economic concept that occurs when entities seek to build wealth without producing societal benefits. In Malaysia, approved permits have long been criticised for being a key part of the country’s rent-seeking culture.
“We are talking to a bunch of English educated, or at least, English speaking people (at the forum). (But) these discussions we are having… You have to go out of KL and engage with the people,” she said.
“There are a lot of people out there (who we) need to engage with.
“There are a lot of youth groups, and you don’t have to like them. But if you want to know what the heartland is about, (you have to know) what their needs are.”
Based in Kuala Lumpur, Iman Research is a think tank which focuses on security, peacebuilding and sustainable development.
Organised by the Global Institute For Tomorrow (GIFT), today’s forum explored the impact of race-based rent-seeking on Malaysia’s development.
The forum focused on the prevalence of rent-seeking behaviour in Malaysia across both the public and private sectors and how it creates inefficiencies in the economy, stifles development, and hurts the country’s social fabric.
Separately, GIFT CEO and founder Chandran Nair alluded to how rent-seeking culture in Malaysia had reached such an extent that it had become normalised.
As an example, he highlighted how Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim had in December cancelled RM7 billion worth of approvals for flood mitigation projects that were done through direct contract awards instead of a tender process.
In a Bernama report, Anwar said that while certain flood mitigation measures had to be expedited, he noted that “there were efforts to exploit the situation”.
Chandran said that he knew of no well-managed economy in the world where a RM7 billion contract would be granted without a tender process and the matter was just accepted by the public.
“It’s news for a day, and then it’s back to business as usual. The press is asleep, business leaders remain silent, everyone is asleep at the wheel,” he said.
“The scale is astounding. RM7 billion being awarded without the Treasury raising alarm bells reflects a completely broken system, where one of the most important institutions in the land is captive to rent-seekers.
“When you have a rent-seeking economy, everything breaks down – as the transport minister is so rightly finding out about infrastructure projects through his investigations.
“Standards are low as no one cares. Meritocracy and competence do not matter… The next generation accepts it as how things work and we have the tragedy of the erosion of value systems in society. It corrodes everything and impoverishes us all in more ways than one.” - FMT
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