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Najib’s 11MP ‘building castles in the air’?

Najib Abdul Razak’s 11th Malaysia Plan announced on May 21 is not only building castles in the air but also lacking in substance and unrealistic. It is an imaginary plan by Najib to manipulate, delude and mislead Malaysians using selective reporting and manipulative statistics.

Najib unveiled the 11th Malaysia Plan in parliament last Thursday, however the whole plan is lacking in substance where there is no bold economic reform nor fundamental change in policy to stop the brain drain - Malaysians’ most important asset to achieve high income nation by 2020.

What Najib provided were merely manipulative figures and statistics to paint a rosy picture that Malaysia will achieve a high income nation by 2020.

The federal government revenue is forecasted to increase from RM1.05 trillion in the 10MP to RM1.408 trillion in 11MP, however the oil-related revenue is expected to decline from 21.5 percent to 15.5 percent.

Where will the additional RM358 billion come from? The Goods and Services Tax (GST) is only expected to bring in additional RM79.5 billion compare to the Sales and Service Tax (SST) over the next five years. Is Najib’s administration going to increase the income tax rate to make up the additional shortfall?

The fact that GST is estimated to bring in an average of RM31.4 billion revenue per year over the next five years compared to an average of RM15.5 billion per year through SST has debunked the myth from Najib’s administration that GST will bring prices down. How will prices come down when Malaysians in overall need to pay a whopping additional RM 15.9 billion of taxes?

This additional burden on Malaysians will not only increase the cost of living dramatically but also make the prediction of inflation rate in 11MP of 2.5  to 3 percent highly unrealistic.

The 11MP also shows that Najib has no political will to cut down on the country’s operating expenditure and allocating more revenue on the development expenditure. Putrajaya is expected to increase a total expenditure of RM294.4 billion over the next five years. However 87.64 percent of this expenditure will be operating expenditure, with development expenditure consisting of the remaining 12.37 percent.

It is most ludicrous for Putrajaya to tax and burden the people with their hard earned money ended up just footing a huge operating expenditure bill.

A reflection of poor financial management

The 11MP also predicted Malaysia’s fiscal deficit to be reduced from 3.2 to 0.6 percent by 2020. This would mean Malaysia could be recording a 23 consecutive years of deficit from 1997 to 2020, a reflection of poor financial management.

The 11MP also expect average monthly household income to increase from RM6,141 in 2014 to RM10,540 in 2020. The average household income is not a good and objective indicator as this figure could be skewed by the country’s richest making more money or more Malaysian housewives being forced to come out for employment to support the family.

What Malaysian need right now is a bold economic reform to cut government expenditures, stop wastages and leakages in the system, implement meritocracy system to reward hardworking middle class and to provide equal opportunities to all Malaysians - irregardless of race & religion. The nation must also put in all effort to retain talent and stop the brain drain by ‘exporting’ the brightest and most talented Malaysians to our neighboring country.

Najib has no political will and resolution to push through a tough economic reform which is urgently needed to propel Malaysia to a high income nation. Instead, what Najib did is to sweet-talk Malaysians by manipulating, deluding and misleading Malaysians using selective reporting and manipulative statistics. The 11MP is nothing but ‘building castles in the air’.


NGA KOR MING is MP for Taiping and Perak DAP chairperson.

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