Category: Good Governance

Tam Yeng Siang copied his letter to New Straits Times, as follows:

I wish to refer to the letter by Ong Wai Leong, again on the issue of the Income Tax’s inability to repay taxpayers’ tax refunds promptly. So many letters have been published by you on the matter that this proves that something is seriously wrong with the delivery system of the IRB. In spite of the Director General’s recent TV interview, in which she promises such refunds to be made within three months, I would like to say that it’s an impossible dream, as long as the current procedures are not changed, and with it, the concept of Tax refunds at source. Allow me to elaborate.

*First the IRB is vigorously promoting e-filing which is a good thing. But in encouraging e-filing, has the IRB considered those who never use computers and ICT in their daily business?

*Second, in order for the IRB to effect refunds arising from dividends paid to individuals, the IRB requires the original dividend vouchers to be sent BY POST to Pandan Indah. These vouchers must be original, and must be verified individually by assessment officers, either against the E-forms, or the BE forms submitted manually together with the original vouchers. As long as the manual process of verification and authorisation is required, it is near impossible for the IRB to do this onerous task within a three month period, year in and year out.

*So, the way out of this mess is to re-think the issue of tax on individual dividends completely. Many years ago, the IRB made a very good decision to resolve the problem of taxpayers not declaring fixed deposit incomes in their yearly forms. They made the banks deduct a fixed rate of tax from the Interest incomes, and the banks then sent the taxes to the IRB directly. This decision had 2 positive effects. Moneys formerly hidden under pillows found their way to the banks, and the IRB found a relatively straightforward way of collecting tax from Interest income.

*For Dividend payments made to the individuals, the IRB can instruct the corporations to collect, say, just 5-10% of tax, remit the tax to the IRB, and refund the balance to the Individual taxpayer. The refunds can be easily made by the corporations at the same time the dividends are paid. Continue reading “IRB, It’s time to “think out of the box””

The Natural Resources and Environment Minister Datuk Seri Azmi Khalid should stop his three-year “sleeping” on the gross injustice of the land law in the country allowing forgery of land titles and fraudulent land transfers and should get Cabinet approval tomorrow to introduce a bill to amend the National Land Code in the current parliamentary meeting to overrule the Federal Court decision on Adorna case.

Last week, the Director-General of Lands and Mines Department, Datuk Zoal Azha Yusof, who was promoted to the post last August from his previous position as Selangor’s Land and Mines Director, said there is a need to amend the National Land Code (NLC) to restore property owners’ rights which have been affected by Adorna Properties Sdn Bhd v Boonsom Bunyanit.

Zoal Azha said he would bring up the matter with the Attorney-General.

How long would this process take? Another two, three or five years?

Such procrastination and insensitivity to the gross injustice created by the Federal Court’s 2001 decision in Adorna case, which interpreted Section 340 of the NLC to favour innocent buyers of land transferred through forgery or fraud, has destroyed the integrity of land titles, leaving the original owners without any means to recover their land. It reflects very poorly on a government which claims to be efficient, just and pro-active in allowing a gross injustice in the land law to stay unchallenged for the past seven years.

The Adorna case is a heart-rending tale which took more than a decade before it finally ended with gross injustice to the rightful owner. Continue reading “Azmi Khalid, end 3-yr sleeping – gross injustice of Adorna case of forgery and fraudulent land transfer”

The answer by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Health Ministry, Datuk Lee Kah Choon during question time today that the government does not have statistics about the number of patients nationwide who died in ambulance on their way to hospital is the latest evidence not only of deteriorating medical and health services in the country, but of the larger issue of the macro problem of the worsening public delivery system despite all the promises of reform.

I find the indifference and insensitivity demonstrated by Lee’s answer most unacceptable as it was only on Friday that the country was shocked by the news report of the totally unnecessary death of Yusnita Abas, 31, wife of factory worker, Ghafur Mohd Ibrahim because the ambulances at Kepala Batas Hospital were “all out of petrol” and could not send her in time for emergency surgery at the Penang Hospital.

In the 50-year independent history of Malaysia, this is the first time a person had died because all the ambulances at a hospital had run out of petrol — tragic proof that public service delivery system and ethos have been getting from bad to worse.

Such a shameful episode had not happened when the country achieved independence in 1957 and the ensuing 49 years. Why is it happening now?

Developed countries are aiming at ambulance emergency response time within eight minutes, but the Health Minister, Datuk Dr. Chua Soi Lek seemed quite happy with an ambulance response time of more than 30 minutes in his response to public criticisms over businesswoman Zara Davies Abdul Rahman’s traumatic experience in trying to get accident and emergency help from Hospital Tengku Ampuan Rahimah Klang to save an accident victim’s life near the Batu Tiga toll booth on Dec. 13 last year, but in vain. Continue reading “Harvard University task force to improve public service delivery – waste of public funds?”

The Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, in his capacity as Finance Minister should direct the Inland Revenue Board to stop invoking Income Tax Act Section 104 barring Malaysians from leaving the country for failing to pay income tax for business, tours and holidays when they have every intention of returning and not absconding from the country, and to seek the advice of the Attorney-General.

In her interview with New Sunday Times, the Chief Executive Officer and Director-General of Inland Revenue Board, Hasmah Abdullah advised 39,867 people who had been blacklisted as tax defaulters that they are barred from leaving the country for failing to pay income tax.

Holiday-makers who bought tickets at the recent Matta fair to go overseas are advised to visit the Inland Revenue Board before they board the plane.

This is most ludicrous and smacks of harassment and even blackmail — something which should not be associated with the public service.

Hasmah pointed out that under Section 104 of Income Tax 1967 (see below), individuals — locals or foreigners — would not be allowed to leave the country if they had not settled their income tax.

I believe that when Parliament passed Section 104 of Income Tax Act 1967 forty years ago, the intention was to prevent individuals, whether locals or foreigners, from evading income tax by absconding from the country — rather than to restrict their business or spoil their holidays plan.

I do not believe Parliament ever intended to prevent Malaysians with income tax problems from going to Singapore, Thailand or other overseas country whether for holidays or business. Continue reading “IRD should not harass or bar defaulters from bona fide foreign trips”

Po Kuan blogs a heart-rending story in the continuing creation of a Malaysian diaspora which has happened to more than a million Malaysians in the past four decades — whether to uproot and migrate overseas and later to take up foreign citizenship.

Although human migration is a common phenomenon in human history and prehistory, the migration of over a million Malaysians in the past four decades was more because of push rather than pull-factors, with the country losing many of her best talents and human resources stunting and undermining Malaysia’s achievement of her full potential in national development and international competitiveness.

Malaysia on her 50th anniversary would have been a more developed, equitable and more competitive nation if more than a million of the most talented , enterprising and resourceful Malaysians had not been driven away from our shores in the past four decades because of unfair discriminatory nation-building policies and measures by myopic politicians.

After nearly four decades of such self-inflicted injuries, the heart-rending story which Po Kuan blogs should have come to an end with the abandonment of unfair discriminatory policies among Malaysians.

But this is not the case. It would appear that the “Good Riddance to Bad Rubbish” reflex and mentality to the problem of emigration of Malaysians, though not publicly stated as in the seventies and eighties, is still quite prevalent today.

There is not much that can be done about the pull-factors of human migration but a government which refuses to address the problem of the push-factors, which are the result of the failures of just and good governance, cannot claim to be a good government. Continue reading “Malaysian diaspora contd – Po Kuan’s blog”

Nanyang Siang Pau has reported that the National Service Training Council at its meeting yesterday had recommended that the national service training programme should not be made compulsory for girls.

It has taken three long years for the National Service Training Council to take up my public call to the Cabinet in April 2004 that if the Cabinet was not prepared to suspend the national service training programme, although it was “half-baked, ill-conceived and premature” from poor conception, formulation and execution right from the beginning, the least the Cabinet should do was to make the national service training programme voluntary for girls, allowing parents who wish to do so to immediately withdraw their daughters from the programme and bring them home.

The call followed the spate of fights, sexual harassment (including rape) and breakdown of discipline in the national service programme. I had also pointed out at the time that out of 1,000 national service trainers, only 15 per cent were women when the ratio of male and female trainees were almost equal.

But this call three years ago fell on deaf ears, including women Cabinet Ministers and the National Service Training Council.

Public confidence in the national service training programme has continued to plummet in the past three years because of the unending incidents, mishaps and disasters including avoidable deaths of trainees, to the extent that quite a substantial number of parents would agree with the sentiments of the letter-to-the editor in the Malay Mail yesterday:

“I would gladly be slapped with the RM3,000 fine rather than be compensated the same amount for the untimely death of my son or daughter.”

Some 365,000 18-year-olds would have undergone the three-month national service training programme by September this year since it was launched in 2004, and over RM2 billion of taxpayers’ money spent.

The National Service Training programme should be a model of transparency and integrity with a full public accounting of the more than RM2 billion spent in the past four years to prove that every sen had been honestly used for the welfare of the trainees. Continue reading “RM2 billion spent on National Service – be a model of integrity”

EPF Forgot Sime Darby’s Lesson in UMBC
Richard Teo

The pension fund, EPF must surely think that money grows on trees when they decided to take-over RHB at a cost of $10 billion.

They have still not recovered from their early foray into Bank Islam and Bank Pertanian where they suffered massive losses.

Bank Islam alone in its audited profit of two years suffered losses of $2.3 billion.Either they are so naiive about business nvestment in the banking sector or they must be sadist looking for more punishment.

If there is any parallel investment failure in the banking sector we need not go too far for examples. Remember Sime Darby’s adventure with UMBC?Yes its brief foray caused them to lose more than $250 million in a short span of time.

Luckily in quick time UMBC was disposed off lock, stock and barrel and that was the first and last time Sime comtemplated venturing into the banking sector deemed ‘a profitable business which could bring long -term benefit’ by its CEO Mr. Azlan Zainol.

If it was profitable why did Sime’s investment in UMBC resulted in such a massive loss?

By his own admission Mr Azlan Zainol said they have no experience in Banking but they were going to engage professionals to run the bank.

Does this imply that UMBC was not run by experts in the banking field? Continue reading “EPF Forgot Sime Darby’s Lesson in UMBC”

Two news reports today do not inspire confidence that the trouble-prone national service (NS) training programme has learnt from all its weaknesses, defects, blunders, mishaps and disasters, including 12 trainee deaths in the past three years, viz:

• The failure to notify the second batch of 35,046 trainees two months before they are to report for training on March 18, as announced in November last year. Instead, notification was only issued three weeks before March 18. (Sin Chew Daily)
• The Star report “NS camp chief gets the boot” on the sacking with immediate effect of Camp commandant Zulkarnain Abdullah after he criticized the management of the three-star Kisana Beach Resort National Service (NS) camp in Kelantan, which had been described as “camp hell” by the first batch of trainees there. The most recent case of national service trainee death, Prema Elenchelian, 18, from Cheras Perdana, Kuala Lumpur on Feb. 27 is from the camp. Zulkarnain alleged that he was sacked for protecting the health, safety and welfare of the 400 trainees and criticizing the shabby conditions of the resort’s management company, Rimbun Kisana Development Sdn. Bhd.

The instant sacking of “whistleblower” camp commandant Zulkarnain does not inspire confidence that the National Service Training Department is prepared to give top priority to the interests and welfare of the national service trainees as compared to the profiteering camp and resort managements.

Zulkarnain, who received his dismissal letter from the NS Department on Thursday evening and was barred from attending the NS closing ceremony marking the end of the first NS programme this year, is clearly being punished for the New Straits Times report of the same day, “Trainees say it’s hell but company begs to differ”. Continue reading “NS mishaps and disasters – whistleblower Zulkarnain sacked instantly”

This is sequel and “happy ending” to the earlier post on Monday, Haslinda vs EPF on the inordinate delay in approving her application for EPF Withdrawal Scheme for Education to the extent that she faced the risk of losing her student status in a local public university.

I had promised to phone the new EPF Chairman Tan Sri Samsudin Osman the next day on Haslinda’s case, as on Wednesday, I was to be admitted into the Penang Lam Wah Ee Hospital for an eye operation.

But the EPF Chairman could not be contacted in his office at EPF Headquarters on Tuesday as he was away in Putrajaya, though I left word with his secretary as to the purpose of my call.

The next day, Haslinda sent me a sms to inform me that EPF had called and informed her that the cheque was ready for collection in Shah Alam branch.

I have just received this email from Haslinda with advice for others in her shoes: Continue reading “Haslinda vs EPF (2)”

THE BLOODSUCKING BANKS
by Tgopal
Kota Damansara

Once upon a time, not too long ago, when the communication system in the world was at it’s infancy, we had so much problems dealing with banks.

Transferring of fund may take days or even weeks. To withdraw RM10, you may have to queue up for one hour or longer. If you had found a discrepancy in your bank statement, it may take months because the bank clerks/officers had to manually search for files which may be located in a store room hundreds of kilometers away.

But thanks to the latest communication technology now, almost all transactions performed at your fingertips in a matter of seconds, or at least we were convinced that way.

Let’s look at two scenarios and I leave it to the judgment of the readers on to what extent our banks are exploiting us, the customers without whom, they will never exist.

Way back in 1993, when I was still working with a local bank, a house cheque banked into a savings account will be cleared immediately but would be under one day float if it’s deposited into a current account. Still, if the current account holder had an ATM card, he could withdraw the fund after 5pm the same day.

Local cheques would be cleared in two days using KLACH system, in which, these cheques would be sent to the account holder’s branch so that the officers there could verify signature and other technical details. Simply put, if I bank in a local cheque at 3pm on Monday, I can withdraw the money on Tuesday after 5pm at any ATMs.

Fast forward to year 2007. If I bank in the same local cheque at 3pm on Monday, I can only withdraw the cash through ATM on Thursday morning, that this TWO full working days later! ( except for Public Bank, where you can withdraw the night before).

With so much of improvement in the information technology, aren’t we supposed get access to our fund earlier. Why is this working the other way around? Continue reading “The Blood-sucking banks?”

One of the buzzwords in vogue when Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi took over as the fifth Prime Minister of Malaysia was “quality public service delivery”.

At the first Cabinet meeting he chaired as Prime Minister on 5th November 2003, Abdullah directed every Minister to set up a task force to cut red tape, fight corruption and deliver quality public service.

Abdullah is in his fourth year of premiership, but all these buzzwords have come to nought to the extent he has to set up a high-powered committee to review why these reforms had failed in the past three years.

Even the EPF, a quite efficient outfit in the past, seemed to be afflicted by the new malaise of service inefficiency and indifference as highlighted by the plight of UiTM final-year student who, thanks to EPF, is in danger of losing her student status. And this affects not just Haslinda but all similarly-placed students.

I will phone the new EPF Chairman Tan Sri Samsudin Osman tomorrow and hope that the newly-retired Chief Secretary to the Government will have a satisfactory response.

Haslinda’s fax to the EPF Chairman follows: Continue reading “Haslinda vs EPF”

This is email from Heng:

Lately, many Telecoms Malaysia customers are forced down their throats to have a new voice mail message service without even the customers requesting for it. I believe this is part of a scheme to meet the so called KPI of the GLC’s. This service is a nuisance to many customers. The calling party shall be charged for futile calls and the receiving party shall be billed for retrieving the messages.

I hope as a YB, please look into this issue or if this is a minor issue to you as you have to handle other major national issues, please get someone to handle this issue for the benefits of Telecoms Malaysia customers.

What say you?