So now the parliament’s speaker, senate president and their deputies will see their monthly allowances increased quite dramatically, although it is their first increase in 29 years.

But, come on: how many ordinary Malaysians ordinarily earn RM7,000 a month? This is incidentally the size of the speaker and senate president’s entertainment allowance – which now is about to rise to RM9,860.

And that’s just their entertainment allowance.

 

But that’s not all. They’ll also get a one-off payment of RM10,000 upon appointment and the same figure upon their retirement. It does not end there, either. With all the other perks, add another RM755,000 to these cretins’ so-called allowance.

bribe and corruption malaysia One of which I cannot calculate, but they’re entitled to buy Chinese dining sets for 50 people that can be taken as souvenirs upon their retirement. Their overseas holidays accommodation is generously looked after and they even get RM6,000 for clothing so they won’t freeze to death if they visit Siberia.

 

Which Malaysian wouldn’t want to be on the regime’s side of politics now?

 

You could create a whole new industry here. You could indoctrinate the cynics and the critics by splashing vast sums of money on them like there’s no tomorrow. And, poof, in one fell swoop, you could kill off all criticism against the regime. Just like that.

 

It’s the politics of envy. You wouldn’t have to work too hard. You’d sit on your ass all day, twiddle your thumbs, fiddle with yourself, dither when it comes to voting on key policies of national importance because you can’t yet see something in it for yourself.

 

You could join all the other ‘lepak kaki’ Malays who hang around shopping centers and the Central Market, ogling women and young school girls, eat and drink – and sleep your life away, knowing the dosh will never run out.

 

NONE DAP’s Rasah MP Anthony Loke (left) was reported as saying that members of Parliament “don’t have an issue with the hike in allowance but noted that MPs too need more money to operate more efficiently”.

 

Loke isn’t asking for the same kinds of perks that the regime’s cretins get or will be getting.

 

He’s asking for money from the parliamentary constituency allowances that will enable the Opposition MPs to become more effective Opposition politicians.

 

He wants money so they can have proper constituency offices and paid administrative and research staff.

 

He’s right. Loke has every right to raise the issue.

 

But he’ll be ignored – of course – by the biggest cretin of all, Najib Razak, the so-called prime minister.                        

Religion of corruption

 

Najib will move heaven and earth, including Gunung Tahan, to ensure his consort Rosmah gets all the dosh she needs to live the good life despite the fact that the poorest Malay, Indian, Chinese or Orang Asli still has to etch out a miserable living in beggar-thy-neighbor Malaysia.

 

NONE Najib (right) would if he knows what’s good for him, if he doesn’t want to sleep in the doghouse, if he knows who wears the pants in his house.

 

But right and fair-minded Malaysians should be spewing openly against the speaker’s, senate president’s and his deputies’ increased allowances.

In a country that can only boast its most heinous culture – no, religion – of corruption, where there is a complete lack of open and transparent governance systems and structures and where the laws protect the crooks. These increases are not allowances but salary increases.

 

Because there is no accountability whatsoever in Malaysia, hence there is no accountability of how these scandalously vast sums of taxpayers’ monies are bludgeoned year in and out.

 

Remember in 2005, when the regime’s ministers and all MPs received a 10% rise in their salary and allowances? That increase amounted to RM3.12 million a year.

 

The previous increase was in 2002. It had cost Malaysian taxpayers RM2.3 million.

 

abdullah ahmad badawi pak lah parliament pc 101208 03 Remember 2008 when the regime’s then chief Abdullah Badawi (left) called for a 10% to ministers’ entertainment and other allowances? Nothing really happened and ultimately the numbers were adjusted for inflation.

 

Remember when Abdullah set up his so-called Anti-Inflation Council in 2008 which then hurriedly advised him to cut expenditure by roughly RM2 billion a year? In the same breath it said the regime would also have to pare back state subsidies.

 

What did Abdullah do? He removed by not a small percentage the national fuel subsidy program, which sent the prices of petroleum and diesel skyrocketing.

 

This fueled public protests, led then not by the gutless keris-wielding, nutty, right-wing Umno Youth, but by PAS Youth.

 

PAS Youth rightly branded Najib a liar for guaranteeing during the 2008 election campaign that there would not be any fuel increase. PAS Youth also rightly branded Shahrir Samad a liar for executing the price hike two days after making the same promise.

                                     

Election shenanigans

Remember, not so long ago the regime said it would have to seriously consider cutting subsidies again or the country would go bankrupt. But nothing has happened yet.

 

What Malaysians are seeing is the regime’s shenanigans in the lead up to the 13th general election.

 

The pay and allowances increases are merely the first round of payolas to the regime’s nepotists. After all, the parliamentary speaker and the senate president and his deputies have been protectors of the regime against opposition questions and criticisms in those “hollowed” – I’ll be damned if I were to call them “hallowed” – chambers. So they’re being paid off for having done their job.

 

The next group of the regime’s bidders to be paid off will be the Malay-fattened, hopelessly corrupt and idiot-infested bureaucracy, customs, immigration and the police and armed forces.

 

Then Najib will call the poll after PKR boss Anwar Ibrahim is put away again and after the next round of quarterly economic data is released – and naturally, some massaging of the numbers.

 

Bursa Malaysia stock market economy If the next quarterly GDP number comes in at between 5% and 10%, Najib will say he’s what Malaysia needs to manage the economy in these difficult times. Anything less than 5% will put him off to next year.

 

If the budget deficit worsens, he’ll have to bet on the GDP number coming in at around 7%-8%. That way he’ll call growth sustainably high and exports improving. Foreign reserves can be rebuilt. He’ll tighten fiscal policy, though not necessarily monetary policy, and say that, with these measure, he can return a balanced budget, at least, or a surplus budget at best.

 

He’ll have runs on the board, and who cares what the bulk of Malaysians and foreign investors say about how corrupt Malaysia and its government is, as long as people have money in their pockets and investors and the regime’s cronies can milk profits left, right and center.

 

But with the official poverty rate at RM691 a month, there is much to worry about. But the question is: Will the bulk of middle-class Malaysians care when and where it really counts?

 

You can guess what the Umno-Barisan regime is thinking.

MANJIT BHATIA, an academic and writer, is also research director of AsiaRisk, a political, economic and risk analysis consultancy in Australia. He specialises in international economics and politics, with a focus on the Asia-Pacific.