Huge institutional reforms are required to create competence. Without that, an uncaged parrot can be as bad as a caged one.
Neither the courts, NGOs nor the politicians seem to care. A profusion of new rules and regulations are constantly churned out without any cost-benefit exercise to judge the impact on competitiveness.Yet this damning expose of our uncompetitiveness produces no political will to change. We have a deep structural problem that is not even recognized, let alone redressed. Will have to go bust again to concentrate the minds of politicians?For years I have demanded faster, stronger action against crooked politicians and businessmen.
A Kadir Jasin screamed “Where did RM7.2bil in consultancy fees go to?” Ask any Malaysians, they would chorus, “In the pockets of middlemen as commissions.”How I wish the government of Prime Minister Mohd Najib Abdul Razak acts equally swiftly and decisively on the plights of the rakyat, like the plan by the Kuala Lumpur City Hall to hike assessment rates by as much as 200% or the spike in deadly shootings around the country.A nation that has forgotten about competing Because the new measures do not change the political mind-set of constantly ignoring competitiveness in formulating new policies and regulations. Politicians take competitiveness for granted, and just want to divide up the spoils of growth. Alas, neglect of competitiveness has meant a collapse of growth, and hence of the spoils too. In his “dream budget”, Najib declared Malaysia would steadily reduce its import duties to ASEAN levels. This aimed to make Malaysia competitive with the Asian tigers, not just in tax rates but everything else, converting Malaysia into the next tiger. This actually happened. But instead of recognizing this as a lesson for future policy, the Najib government took fast growth for granted and stopped trying to compete. With this, the Najib’s credibility lies shredded. It seems not to know the difference between crime and bona fide use of ministerial discretion; between policy decisions and corruption; or between good governance and wooden adherence to bureaucratic norms. It has produced no evidence of bribe or other favours in return for favours. So, its accusations sound more a hurried witch hunt than a search for justice.
‘Where did RM7.2bil in consultancy fees go to? Ask any Malaysians, they would chorus, ‘In the pockets of middlemen as commissions.’Just from the list provided, it looks the setting up of the Performance and Management Delivery Unit (Pemandu) takes the bulk of the consultancy fees.
Poor Bumiputera will resort to theft, minister Nancy Shukri said today in her defence of the government’s recent move to reintroduce a race-preferential economic policy that has drawn the ire of Malaysia’s minority Chinese and Indian communities. The de facto law minister told a public forum on international covenants organised by the Malaysian Bar here that the Bumiputera Economic Empowerment Policy was needed to help fix the unequal wealth distribution among the races that remains prevalent half a century after the country was formed, and which she claimed could lead to a potential spurt in social ills and crime. “As a politician now, I understand why there is a Bumiputera new economic policy… The Bumiputera, they are very marginalised in terms of economy. They’re very much lower than other groups. – See more at: http://www.themalaymailonline.com/malaysia/article/bumiputera-will-steal-if-left-unaided-says-law-minister#sthash.KucPQWkK.dpuf
The RM51.5 million is computed from the following companies, excluding some with cost unknown – they include McKinsey and Co, Hay Group, Ethos & Co, Alpha Platform (M) Sdn Bhd, Tarmidizi, Boston Consulting Group, Provectis and Vision Technology Computing.
These were only initial setting-up cost but to include the running, maintaining and the advertising cost that Pemandu took would be in billions. No wonder unelected Minister in PM’s Department Idris Jala, who also acted as CEO of the unit, defended and self-praised their department.
Pemandu sets KPI (key performance indicators) for other departments but have they set and achieved their own KPI?
Maybe Najib feels pressured to do something quickly by the Supreme council activism. Recently, Mahathir said the government of turning the Finance Ministry into a “caged parrot” in the scam. Many people, including me, cheered determination to prevent cover-ups for which the MCCA has in the past been notorious the pace of inquiry is not good. You are still driving in the first gear.” The voters wanted investigations in the scam completed.
more shocking is the revelation by the Finance Ministry that the Federal government had spent RM7.2 billion since 2009 to hire private consultants for national projects.
It is clear that Mohd Najib as PM and Finance Minister loves private consultants despite the government having a whopping 1.4 million staff. This is not counting his special envoys and special advisers with ministerial status.
In response to question by the DAP MP for Kelana Jaya, Wong Chen, the ministry revealed a gradual rise in the bills for private consultancy firms from RM1.3 billion in 2009 — the year Mohd Najib became PM — to RM1.63 billion in 2010, RM1.8 billion in 2011, RM1.82 billion in 2012 and RM722 million from January to October this year.
In a damning indictment of the civil servants, the Finance Ministry said: “The capabilities of government researchers are limited in terms of their competency and human resources.”
If they are not good, sack them or train them. What’s the point of having a million over civil servants and paying them better salaries if Mohd Najib has to rely on outsiders and foreigners? Actually we can get free consultancy from such multilateral organisation as the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank if we want to.
As a footnote, I congratulate a former BN MP, who now chairs a statutory body, for telling two Ministers –Mustapha Mohamed and Idris Jala – in a meeting with journalists a few days ago to stop hiring foreign consultants. I would not ask if he dares saying that if he was still an MP.– kadirjasin.blogspot.com,
