PKR wants the Performance Management and Delivery Unit (Pemandu) to explain why its data shows that Malaysians will actually be worse off under the Economic Transformation Programme (ETP).

NONE Referring to Pemandu's projection of per capita income in 2020, under the ETP, PKR trade and investment chairperson Wong Chen (right) said the government should focus on this instead of harping on whether Malaysia took a loan from the World Bank in 1998.

"We invite Pemandu and (former prime minister) Dr Mahathir (Mohamad) to not distract (by) using the issue of the World Bank and (to) come back on the issue of the ETP

"Stop playing around with 1997 ( sic ) stories...We can do so for political points but what is the point of this boxing (match)?" he asked.

Wong, nevertheless said that it appears that countries which had taken bailout packages from international financial institutions like the International Monetary Fund (IMF) are now in better shape than Malaysia.

“Indonesia is booming today, but we seem to not have gotten over (the setback from the 1998 financial crisis). We did not fully implement the structural reforms required and so we are stuck.

orange book forum klscah 250111 rafizi ramli “Those who took the medicine have moved on... but we are stuck in the middle income trap,” he said.

Chief of strategy Rafizi Ramli ( left ), however, clarified that PKR is not saying that Malaysia will be in a better position had it taken the IMF bailout package.

“There is no silver bullet. Capital controls (placed by Mahathir) have their pros and cons and so does the bailout plan. But the underlying principle is that economies that embrace openness and get rid of corruption are better suited to compete,” he said, adding that there is nothing essentially wrong with taking a World Bank loan.

World Bank v IMF

Rafizi added that those who continue to attack Anwar for purportedly being an IMF agent, and differentiating the IMF from the World Bank, also do not understand the nature of the funding agencies.

“They are Bretton Woods institutions built on the same framework, and place similar conditions to loans,” he said.

The 12-year Anwar-Mahathir spat took another turn last week when the former revealed that Mahathir had obtained World Bank loans to weather the 1998 financial crisis.

This is despite Mahathir’s insistence that taking money from Western institutions would 'enslave' the nation. He had also accused Anwar of being a foreign agent for supporting the IMF bailout plan.

Anwar had at the same forum on Thursday said that Pemandu’s prediction of income per capita of RM48,000 by 2020 is unlikely to happen given the average inflation and wage rate.