Malaysia, a land of growth no more

By Panglima Garang | Oct 1, 09 12:20pm | Malaysiakini

When I was at the KLIA airport recently bidding farewell to my family, the lingering thought in my mind was “Am I making a mistake leaving this country?”

The answer was just another question, “What good is there left in this country?”

I am not leaving Malaysia because I found something better. I am a bit tired of the social and economic mismanagement of Malaysia and racially anchored policies. I am already successful in Malaysia by any measure.

At the last count, I was in the top 1percent income bracket. I graduated from USM and joined the civil service just like any other Malaysian Indian did in the 1980s. I studied law at my own expense and time with numerous challenges just like many other Malaysian Indians did.

I awaited the first promotion you can get in civil service i.e. Senior Time scale A12.

However as per NEP policy requirements, I was not given the rightful promotion despite many recommendations by the head of the statutory authority who supported my promotion with quantitative and qualitative justifications.

Finally, he personally informed me to quit the service and leave for private sector.

I joined the private sector and in nine years I worked at the same level as I did in the government job but I leap-frogged my income and position.

In my definition I am successful as I have saved enough to educate my children overseas, became well known in my industry for certain skills and knowledge and also ran a non-profit fraternity specific organisation to improve my fellow professionals public standing.

So I am not one of those Malaysian who allowed himself to be left in the cold.

But where do I go from here? What does the future hold for this country which I dearly loved?

Professionalism at work?

How will this country survive the challenges of the future? And personally what can my children achieve in this country?

As a USM Mass Communication graduate, we were trained to be socially responsible.

At least the students of my era were! Thus, it always bothered me whenever I saw, heard and read about mismanagement of public monies through crooked and irresponsible means.

Sometimes it affected my sleep although I have nothing to do with it. I am no way directly and financially affected by such government wrongs and gross losses.

Then there are the “happenings” in the civil service which is close to my heart.

I note that it has gotten worse as many are not accountable, responsible or remotely knowledgeable.

There are so many promoted in the civil service due to family links and thus no one can take action against another for want of professionalism in work.

The NEP was a good initiative for the poor Malays to improve their lot but abused by some political masters including the previous prime ministers’ publically stated policy of making 1,000 Malay millionaires.

I am not sure where are these Malay millionaires now and what have they given back to the country which made them millionaires.

We can go on listing all the billions of losses and mistakes the political masters did for the past 40 years!

Of course the Chinese businessmen made a lot of mistakes in the first 10 years after Merdeka (they were racial and discriminatory in business practices).

Change came slowly but surely

I can quote real life examples but let’s keep to the theme here.

The BN thought they can go on doing the same political game as they believed “Malaysians have a short memory of six months of anything”.

The BN formula was so successful that to-date that it does not think anything is wrong with their formula but only people got it mixed up.

And then came the Hindraf (whom I myself, who is always on top of the social agenda, did not notice until October 2007) which changed the political thinking of the Indians first, then the Chinese and now the Malays.

I and many of my friends, who have nothing to do with the Hindraf leaders (to-date I have not met any of them), campaigned for the issues raised by them, first amongst the Indians (especially the well educated and “well-incomed” Indians).

Many Indians in my category of income and position did not relate to the issues and some were so oblivious to it.

We (in an uncoordinated form) spoke to the Chinese and Malay friends and somehow the fever for change took the form of SMSes, blogs, Facebooks, websites etc.

Suddenly the Malaysian public realised there were SO MANY corrupt actions, abuse of public authorities and powers, wrongs, mistakes and mismanagement of monies by the BN government.

This all led to one action required i.e. vote out the government.

Factors of past growth

Now, let us assess who and what was professional which led to Malaysia’s growth in 1960s,1970s and upto mid 80s:

1. Ministries were led by secretary-generals and their department directors. They had a say in the budget, allocations, management and public spending. The ministers consulted the government officials on public spending. We had government officials conducting opening ceremonies. Now, have you heard any government servant given the honour? Now ministers run to open restaurants!

2. Government departments were led by intelligent Malays, Chinese and Indians. They had the Malaysians at heart in their actions. We have programme like SOS (Sometimes called Sini Orang Susah), Flying doctors and others. Even the scouts and girl guides associations were given honour. Then came Dr Mahathir who wanted to destroy anything even remotely connected to our colonial past and wanted to reshape Malaysia in his image.

3. Banking. During Ismail Ali’s time (only downside was that he was Dr Mahathir’s brother-in-law), Bank Negara was the centre of fiscal and monetary policy.

   There were proper checks and balances in various business practices. Officials supervising industries had competency, integrity, honesty and professionalism.

   Otherwise action were taken. However now, just look at our insurance industry where Malaysians pay one of highest premiums but returns were full of loopholes.

   Everyday new products are launched like the US derivates but do the public really benefit from these, or are they scams? They said an average Japanese has three insurance policies.

   I think the Japanese believe in their insurance scheme but look at the Malaysian statistics on insurance. Do you know there is a specific regulator in Bank Negara for the insurance industry and he has to validate all schemes?

   I suppose he can’t do much because all major insurance companies are co-owned by PNB, an Umno vehicle. Mahathir did not like many deposit taking and financing companies in Malaysia which you cannot control. So, he made it illegal for these companies to operate in 1980/90s. He wanted to put his kunchu-kunchus in charge of all these outfits.

4. During Auditor General Ahmad Noordin’s time, spending of government money was monitored. Of course the self declared CEO of the country Mahathir not only fired him for conducting the BMF scandal inquiry professionally but also disgraced him.

Money, money and more money

5. During Hanif Omar’s time as the inspector general of police, he had good relationship with the PMs but did not allow the police to be used for the whims and fancies of Umno. The police fought many criminal gangs like Botak Chin and we had many crime busters.

6. During Harun Hashim, Eusoffe Abdulcader, George Seah, Azmi Kamaruddin, Wan Hamzah, Wan Suleiman Pawanteh’s time, the judiciary was seen and heard as neutral to all people and businessmen. Mahathir hated this idea that they could make decisions without consulting him.

7. The Chinese worked hard in setting up industries and businesses. The Malays generally both in politics and government gave good leadership i.e. they supported the business and did not grab stakes or demanded contracts in businesses.

8. The food in the country was better. But now in Malaysia almost all restaurants use low quality ingredients and cheap meats. Just go to Singapore and eat a bowl of curry mee, nasi lemak or roti canai at a stall and you will feel the difference.

Even in Qatar which does not produce any vegetables, meat or milk, you can get high quality cow’s milk at affordable price, fresh vegetables at reasonable cost.

What happened to the Malaysian health inspectors who used to visit restaurants and food processing factories in 1970s?

The list can go on. Slowly these leaders and their ministries and departments began dying under the heavy weight of one self-proclaimed CEO of the country Mahathir.

He used the Malay sentiment to woo the Malays in the government departments and used them for his antics. He found that it was easy to sway the Umno Malays by claiming he knows all the medicines for the so called Malay problem. He wanted to make the Malays like Chinese.

As a result now we have Melayu Baru who want money, money and more money by hook or crook.

What is the cause of BN’s death?

The BN started dying after the coming to power of Mahathir. He did several things to aid and abet the death:

1. Umno was made mainstay party in BN to aid cronies to make monies.

2. Umno cronies were consulted on country policies/decisions.

3. Component party leaders were made weak/corrupted and subservient to the PM.

4. Government machinery and funds became subject to political leaders/Umno cronies.

5. The single most change which killed BN parties was Mahathir’s amendment to Societies Act after the Umno leadership tussle between him and Tengku Razaleigh

In view of the foregoing, there is no scope for BN to take back the votes of the Malaysians unless there is radical change in the composition and management of BN.

But BN leaders rather die than change.

By the next general election, the three enforcement bodies who are authorised to maintain law and order in Malaysia i.e. the Police, the MACC, the armed forces and its related bodies like immigration, judiciary and other ministries will only get from bad to worse as the political masters will continue using them in to stay in power.

I am not a doomsday prophet like Paul Krugman but the change in the world started taking place with the fall of the Russian empire as Glasnost in late 1980’s.

All the great regimes and governments which ruled the last 50 years have been collapsing (since WWII).

Fall before rising

Umno has to fail and fall before it is reborn. It “has to” fail like the conservatives in the UK, the Congress party in India, LDP in Japan, Suharto’s regime in Indonesia, and Marcos in the Philippines.

The question is not whether Umno will fall or not, but when Umno falls what will happen to Malaysia and its political, social, economic, cultural systems!

Umno will create a disaster as it will try to divert the course of nature and history by doing a Razak (declare emergency) or Mahathir (arrest everyone like Ops Lalang). The system will crash: Why? UMNO has created a mechanism where there is nO difference between Malaysia and Umno.

All these years Umno was fighting the battle with the Opposition using Umno’s internal strength. But Umno has realised it is left with no gurkhas or structures to fight with. Money in Umno kitty is gone with its previous treasurer, its state leaders have destroyed their own supporters due to corruption and cronyism. So in the last 12 months Umno is using its next bastion of power, the government machinery. Soon the army might be enlisted as well.

The abuse of government money and authorities to defend Umno and BN leaders and prosecute the opposition is so obvious even to a fifth former. Just read the Facebooks.

The political leaders of Umno have created a situation that when Umno crashes the country crashes. They will instil fear, enlist the army, police, FRUs and MACCs to go all out against anyone who may derail their plans to stay in power.

When that happens, where will Malaysia head then?

Panglima Garang is a pseudonym of a former civil servant, journalist and corporate professional. He is presently residing overseas advising a Middle East petroleum giant.