Finance Minister Tengku Zafrul Tengku Abdul Aziz said the subsidy bill for this year (2022) is expected to hit RM77.3 billion – the largest in the history of Malaysia. The subsidy included petrol, diesel, liquefied petroleum gas (RM37.3 billion), cooking oil (RM4 billion), flour and electricity (RM9.7 billion), Bantuan Keluarga Malaysia (BKM) (RM11.7 billion), and other subsidies (RM14.6 billion).
In actuality, only two-thirds of the subsidy amount (RM51 billion) is for essentials like petrol, diesel, gas, cooking oil, flour and electricity. The remaining one-third are cash handouts (RM11.7 billion) to fish for votes and other unknown subsidies (RM14.6 billion). The government can cancel the BKM cash aid, but then it will definitely lose power in the next national election.
The burning question is – what are the “other subsidies” amounting to RM14.6 billion, which is more than the cash handouts for the people? If the other subsidies included compensation to highway operators due to lopsided agreements in order to enrich elite politicians, then it’s unfair for the government to cry, whine, moan and bitch about the record breaking subsidy for this year.
Senior Works Minister Fadillah Yusof revealed last year how the government must pay a whopping RM2.25 billion in compensation to several Klang Valley highways for freezing toll rates in 2021. PLUS Expressways’ compensation alone was more than RM1 billion. Obviously, these are corruptions or leakages – not subsidies – which do not benefit the people.
But even the subsidies for essentials are suspicious. For example, when the government tried to justify why subsidy for cooking oil needed to be scrapped, Finance Minister Tengku Zafrul said the government is currently subsidising about RM6 per kg for cooking oil. Current price is about RM8.50 per kg. Meaning the new price would be RM14.50 per kg.
However, cooking oil in Indonesia was selling for 17,300 rupiah per litre – about RM5.15 per litre (1 litre = 1 kilogram). Both Malaysia and Indonesia cooking oil is made of palm oil. Even if Indonesian palm oil mafia exploits the market by doubling the price, it’s still RM10.30 per litre. So, how did Zafrul calculate that the unsubsidised price is RM14.50 per kg, when Indonesia sells for only RM5.15 per kg?
Interestingly, after the clueless and incompetent Ismail Sabri government made a U-turn in floating the chicken price and raising electricity tariff, Tengku Zafrul took credit by claiming the government’s commitment to the huge amount of subsidies was to reduce the cost of living. Did he just admit that the government did not care about the people – till the public uproars?
The finance minister appears to be lost whether the government was complaining about the RM80 billion subsidies, or was actually proud of the massive subsidies. Either way, the government has no one to blame but itself. The subsidy did not start yesterday, but rather decades ago – before the Ukraine invasion by Russia – under the current UMNO-led Barisan Nasional government.
The root cause of Malaysia’s troubles – national debt, subsidies, quotas, favouritism, unemployable graduates, corruption, cronyism and whatnot – is traceable to “Ketuanan Melayu”, the ideology of Malay supremacy espoused by UMNO (United Malays National Organization), the party that has dominated the country’s politics for more than six decades till its stunning defeat in 2018 General Election.
In the aftermath of the 1969 general election, deadly racial riots broke out between Malays and Chinese in several cities when opposition parties made gains at the expense of the ruling coalition, the Alliance Party (which would become today’s Barisan Nasional). The riots itself was a plot to seize power by Deputy Prime Minister Abdul Razak from Prime Minister Tunku Abdul Rahman.
The bloody riots led to the formation of NEP (New Economic Policy), giving Malays (or bumiputera, equivalent to Sanskrit “prince of soil”) preferential treatment in all spheres of public life. From senior positions in the civil service to 30% stake in all corporations and from special quota in universities to a discount of 5% to 15% on new housing developments, the NEP was supposed to uplift Malays.
But the racist policy has instead given birth to not only corruption at industrial scale, but is also a drag on the country’s economic competitiveness. During Mahathir Mohamad era as the 4th Prime Minister of Malaysia from 1981 to 2003, major infrastructure projects – the North-South Expressway, the Petronas Towers, the Putrajaya – were awarded to Malay companies with ties to UMNO.
Privatization program saw many public utilities became so-called GLCs (government-linked companies), tasked with representing and promoting bumiputera interests. However, the owners or major shareholders of those Malay companies were either family members or cronies of UMNO politicians, including Mahathir and subsequent prime ministers – Abdullah Badawi, Najib Razak, and Muhyiddin Yassin.
From multi-millionaires in the 1980s and 1990s to multi-billionaires in the 2000s, the NEP has indeed produced many super wealthy UMNO-Malays. But only a very small minority of Malays have benefited greatly. While poverty and underemployment remain a stubborn problem in the Malay community, politically-connected Bumiputra entrepreneurs have prospered off state patronage.
UMNO elites have consistently refused reforms for fear of losing their own privileges. To hide or divert attention from their ill-gotten wealth, UMNO leaders would falsely and deliberately stir up racial and religion sentiments among the Malays that the Muslims and Malay Rulers have lost power to the “Chinese, Christians and Communists”.
To stay in power, all the government ministries, agencies and GLCs were headed by not only UMNO-Malays, but were ordered to hire only Malay staffs. Today, 90% of civil servants are Malays, systematically discriminating and forcing non-Malays to find jobs in the private sector. This has led to polarization based on race and religion, which has gotten worse with Islamic extremism and radicalization.
Now, here’s where the fun begins. After decades of hiring only Malays, the government has a 1.6-million-strong civil service workforce in the country – the largest civil service relative to population in the world. The bloated civil servants have become too big to be offended as they constitute a critical vote bank to the ruling government. The cost to feed them becomes out of control.
In the Budget 2022, out of RM332.1 billion allocated, a jaw-dropping RM233.5 billion is for operating expenditure, leaving only RM75.6 million for development. Civil service salaries and pensions account for about 45% of the operating budget. So, more than RM100 billion is being spent on civil servants’ salaries, money which otherwise can be used to develop economies.
Adding fuel to fire, the race and religion politics saw national schools becoming religion schools, producing increasingly low standard students, who, despite tertiary education in local universities, were unemployable as they can’t even communicate in simple English. Most would gain employment with the civil service, unable to compete in the highly competitive private sector.
Energy subsidies have existed in Malaysia since the 1980s, when Mahathir administration decided to keep the cost of living artificially low primarily because the government could only pay low salaries to Malay government servants who were unemployable. In 2020, the unemployed graduates shot to 202,400 – comprising mostly ethnic Malays.
Various subsidies were introduced to keep the country competitive in the 1980s and 1990s. Initially, Malaysia manufacturers focused on low value-added sector. With competencies in production and assembly and substantial talents in fabrication and product testing, the country had remained a relevant player in the global manufacturing industry, particularly the electrical and electronics sector.
However, with the emergence of countries like Vietnam and China who could offer cheaper workers, Malaysia suddenly found itself trapped in its own game – unable to move up the global value chain due to deteriorating education system as well as brain drain in the form of hundreds of thousands of technical skills went through a large scale migration to other countries.
Even though the world has changed rapidly, Malaysia remains stagnant, failed to shift from low-end manufacturing towards more high-value activities such as biotechnology, design and R&D, or AI (Artificial Intelligence). Local talents and companies are afraid to grow their products or business as they are spooked by the NEP policy which empowers parasite UMNO-Malays to grab 30% (or more) of their shares.
Promoting Malay supremacy not only undermines government accountability, but it makes for unsound economics. A classic example is Proton, Mahathir’s national car pet project that was started in 1983. Until it was acquired by Chinese Geely in 2017, Proton had been asking for subsidies to stay alive. Mahathir argued it must be continuously protected because it buys parts mostly from Malay vendors and employs almost only Malays.
Finally, Prime Minister Najib Razak took the first step to reform the country’s subsidy in 2014, slashing fuel subsidies and other types of subsidies that led to economic distortions. But Najib was a fake reformist. Despite scrapping subsidies, the saving was nowhere to be seen. Instead, under Najib administration, the country’s national debt ballooned to RM1 trillion.
Even though Najib introduced cash handouts in the form of BR1M (1Malaysia People’s Aid), the source of the aid did not come directly from the reduction of subsidies. It came from heavy borrowings as well as money stolen from 1MDB (1Malaysia Development Bhd). In addition, Goods and Services Tax (GST) was introduced effective April 1, 2015, collecting about RM44 billion annually.
In the end, the racist “Ketuanan Melayu” policy has not only failed to uplift the Malays, but makes them even more addicted to cash handouts and subsidies. The fact that the government said the latest RM100 cash aid will benefit an estimated 8.6 million people and 4 million households speaks volumes about the poor financial condition of Malaysians, especially the Malays.
There’s a reason why the value of local currency Ringgit increasingly depreciates since the 1998 Asia Financial Crisis, and hasn’t been able to recover. Foreign investors are losing confidence, not only because of political instability, but because they have a better choice in other countries in the region like Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand and the Philippines. The world does not revolve around Malay supremacy.
Other Articles That May Interest You …
- BN Govt’s Special Gifts For The People – RM100 Cash With Conditions To Hike Prices Of Cooking Oil, Chicken & Egg, Electricity
- Agong Condemns Corruption – But The King Should Explain Why He Invited Najib To Palace & Dined With The Biggest Crook
- The Return Of GST – PM Ismail Sabri’s Audemars Piguet Watch Worth RM292,553 Can Subsidize Thousands Of Chicken
- Roti Canai & Teh Tarik To Cost More Next Month – Here’s Why The Cost Of Living Will Be Worse If Najib’s GST Is Still Here
- Too Little Too Late – Bank Negara Raises Interest Rate To Rescue Tumbling Ringgit Under Pretext Of Fighting Inflation
- Ringgit Hits 2-Year Low Of 4.36 Despite High Oil Price – How UMNO Leaders Destroy The Currency In The Last 25 Years
- 7 New Taxes That Najib & UMNO Plan To Introduce After They Win The 15th General Election
- Food Prices Skyrocket – The Return Of Monopoly & Cartel Run By Rich UMNO Malay Elites To Profit From The People
- From 30% To 51% Shares – Endless Racist Policies & Daylight Robberies Why Local Talents & Companies Fled Elsewhere
- Congrats Muhyiddin! – Here Are The Letters From German, Japanese And Dutch Investors Threatening To Pull Out
- The Worst Is Yet To Come – Muhyiddin’s Mishandling Of Covid-19 & Mismanagement Of Economy Is Worse Than Trump
- Get Ready For Bad Time Ahead! – As Malaysia’s Economy & Corporate Debt Get Worse, Retrenchment Has Just Begun
June 27th, 2022 by financetwitter
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Comments
What are your solutions to help Malaysia solve these problems? It is easy to point out the problems and blame the people running the government. Anyone can do that!
Are you going to say, wait until Pakatan Harapan takes over again in the next general election and Anwar Ibrahim becomes prime minister?
Sorry to disappoint you but Pakatan Harapan will not be able to repeat its 2018 feat again. In 2018, it was Mahathir who managed to get the additional few % votes and seats to help Pakatan Harapan across the 50% finish line, but Pakatan has burnt the bridge with Mahathir.
In the next general election, there will be a lot of noises from Pakatan Harapan and their supporters but it will be a repeat of 2013. Finance Twitter is astute enough to analyse how Anwar led Pakatan to a premature ejaculation in the 2013 general election.
I’ve always thought Ketuanan was like apartheid in South Africa under white supremacist racist rule. That was until I discovered that quite unlike the white supremacists in South Africa, our “supremacists” are a totally unimpressive bunch of fcuking moronic, useless, and worthless clown monkeys while the South African whites, racists as they may be, did rather well for their country in so far as their economy was concerned. They could also make nuclear bombs, first-class artillery, rockets and lots of other technical and industrial stuff if you are not interested in arms sales. And that was in spite of the boycotts that the progressive world brought on them that eventually brought white rule to its knees, such being always the fate that always befall the chest-thumping monkeys of racism with the mindfrom the Stone Age.
That said, and nothing racist here, the blacks do deserve their rightful place as masters in their society, but when they took over, they quickly proceeded to fcuk up their country with unbelievable corruption, rent-seeking, greed, vengeful mentality, sheer ineptitude and gross mismanagement. In other words, they return their country back to the jungles.
Sound familiar? That would be a tragedy foretold for Malaisesia, for it is the exact opposite, the fcuking dumb moron monkeys of Ketuanan run the zoo, if the “lesser” beings were to suffer a fate worse than now, the zoo run by the fcuking uncivilised monkeys would be no more overnight, Kaput, the fcuking monkeys of Ketuanan have more than proved their worthlessness – some six decades and Malaisesia is assured a return to the Stone Age. There is, btw, no Mandela in Malaisesia, though not too few delusional monkeys in the “opposition” think they are.
There’s little point in telling the moronic monkeys of Ketuanan they are moronic, they have to be at least a little intelligent to know they are fcuking morons. Where else in the world can you find such fcuking monkeys so blessed and so endowed with the gift of so ably fcuking up the country – anything and everything Ketuanan touches always turns into a mountain of blessed pig excrement, no exception.
Our Ketuanan worse than don’t work. To begin with it is not even half-baked. It is based on fcuking crass myths that were less than half-cooked and invented in recent years. You can enjoy a movie happily believing myths, but you get back to the real world soon as you leave the cinema. Our fcuking moronic monkeys of Klub Ketuanan actually live in the hilarious half-baked half-arsed myths of their supposed “supremacy” and posture and strut around as if in a horror movie about the delightful delusions of the mighty apes of some failed planet not of this galaxy.
Malaisesian Ketuanan is entirely different from that of white South Africa. Sure, the monkeys that run the zoo are not exactly white, nor have they an atom of intelligence of the white racists. But racist Klub Ketuanan definitely is, even when, like the old Protons before Ketuanan Cina took over, the wheels have fallen off the ideology even before they leave the factory! You simply can’t deal with our Ketuanan without falling off your shoes in loud riotous laughter at the amazing sight of an old Proton, a fcuking cardboard coffin with four cheap wheels, some of the myths of our washed-out pig shiite “supremacists” are simply mind-contorting out of our galaxy!
Where there’s similarity, both South Africa and Malaisesia would come to a grinding halt once the blessed monkeys grab power. Well, Bolehland is already in the paws of the ketuanan monkeys and is already a thriving failed sh*thole patch of Tanah-whatever ground fast racing like failed old Protons to become a leading contender for the first place as a successful failed state. And that’s even before those able among the “lesser” beings have packed up and left the blessed ketuanan sh*thole and hellhole!
With the necessary grind to keep the running of the sh*thole left to the enterprising nons and migrant workers, Malaisesia would immediately seize up and pack up the moment those doing the actual work balik elsewhere. Ketuanan is not only amazingly moronic, it has a trademarked patent laziness. The answer to everything is to doze at every half a chance, deep in the dreams of Ketuanan mythologies, talk cock a lot, and do nothing useful – in fact, do everything to destroy the country. If that fails, try the stupor of trance – and do nothing useful than continue recite those pig shiite “supremacist” mantras,Alhamdulilah, Amin.
The recession is here and we are guaranteed the Ketuanan monkeys would make it worse, such is the only talent of making a bad thing disastrously worse. The answer to the recession is as usual pretend it doesn’t exist, talk a lot of pig shiite about the situation being under control, talk a lot of the usual cock, and laze around and the Big Woman up the Sky will will everything to get better for Her chosen wans, go back to sleeping under the coconut trees, Alhamdulilah!
Corruption is the only viable industry here, and that will invariably get worse during the time when the poor will get a heck of a lot poorer. The “solution” of giving the “free” rm100 for one very small single shopping trip is disingenuous, it will not do anything for any Malaisesian, but it is designed to con those dumbfcuk voters who are raised on their diet of Ketuanan pig shiite propaganda.
Still, I would say take the rm100 and vote some politician else, but unfortunately, we get the same pig shiite politicians in the “opposition”, same blessed old shiite only a different colour.
In many ways, apartheid Ketuanan is already like the tottering state of Ukraine. Both have a comedian as head of state. Both are fcuking corrupt. Both have moron monkeys grotesquely mismanaging their economy and country. Both treat their nons as non-entities, Ukrainians discriminates their Russian-speakers, Ketuanan discriminates against anything not ketuanan and with ketuanan intelligence. The corrupt of both countries stash their loot abroad. Ukraine’s state religion is against other religion else, even a slightly different Orthodox version of their national religion. Ketuanan’s religion is the even sicker and dumb-fcuked version of the primitive goat-shaggers of the deserts.
Both countries are deeply racist, Ukrainians hate anyone black or brown, here, Ketuanan, being near entirely black or brown, hates everybody else including the blacks and the brown. Interestingly, while Ukraine kisses the arse of the US and obliges itself to be politically funny to China, it otherwise treats its major trading partner China respectfully.
When the war broke out in Ukraine, Chinese folks were repatriated into Poland with the security of lots of police and traffic escorts. Bolehlanders were harshly treated and practically chucked out by their face, even those who use layers of the compulsory whitening products. The lack of respect for our Ketuanan plus the cockups with the rescue of our nationals by Almighty Ketuanan made the lives of Bolehlanders expectedly most unbearable.Not too few Bolehlanders go to Ukraine to study, I’ve wondered about the point of doing that when Ketuanan offers better for the chosen wans, marks are even lowered for entry and exit for the beneficiaries of Ketuanan.
Btw, I’ve always suspected our passenger aircraft was deliberately chosen to be shot down by Ukraine. Pick a white country to do that to and you’ll see what tons of shiite would hit Ukraine. Anyway, years on, the world has still not given a shiite over what Ketuanan has to say about the tragic event – worse than that Ketuanan never worked hard to be noticed and respected by those dealing with the air crash, Ketuanan made only tiny squeaky noises none bothered to listen to. And Glorious Ketuanan has yet to stand tall and account for the shoddy way it treated the matter, most of all, the foul and disgraceful way the families of the victims were treated, the standard Ketuanan way is keep quiet and play dead. Which is not difficult as Ketuanan is mentally pretty fcuking dead, anyway.
Still, despite the black is white and white is black of the respective colour of the racists of Ketuanan and of Ukraine, Sleepy Sabrina can take a lesson from Shorty Zelensky on what to wear on the way to nowhere than a final doom. For max effect that wan is hands on and tirelessly fighting a war, wear the same t-shirt as Shorty does all the time. Sabrina’s expensive Burbebri shirt is inappropriate and sheer bad taste, wan must not look a fcuking pondant fairy wanting to avoid getting the hands dirty – or using a shovel for just wan dig of a small single shovel load of dirt. And too many daze too after the floods, wtf.
There’s ketuanan and ketuanan, and there’s apartheid and apartheid. But you can’t beat Bolehland’s ketuanan and apartheid, in the rest of the world where can you ever find “supremacists” who are as half-baked as ours, wtf?! Then again, where else in the world can you find such a fcuked up country as run by our fcuked up pig shiite “supremacists”? Even our ketuanan is supremely fcuked up and on permanent holiday!
I’ve always had the question: if Ketuanan is so fcuking brillant why is it utterly so incapable of standing up even on one knee if it is so dependent on being fcuking parasites permanently leeching off others? Where’s the “supremacy”? Why is their no shame at being such parasitic leeching bloodsucking oinking wonders of the lower species?!
Sometimes I read about how well Malaisesia is “actually” doing. But all those talks are based on faulty and highly questionable statistics and “facts”. The gomen is highly secretive and touchy about making data openly and freely available as a matter of routine and necessity. I, for one, would like to question the methods of gathering data and the arriving of the results for such, those on data work are forever touchy and evasive about their work – and as if they are always dealing with some state secret, Pah! On a cursory and simple scrutiny, gomen data are without exception a whole gigantic pile of entirely questionable fcuking bollocks.
My favourite case is the one where a noted professor working with the UN and dealing with poverty questioned our country’s very dodgy and obvious bullsh*t and fake data. Caught out for being absolutely crap at inventing and falsifying data, our monkeys hid their disingenuous failure and utter shame of being caught out by attacking the person of the distinguished professor, wtf and what fcuking Ketuanan is that, I ask!
Whenever I come across the conjuring up of the description of blue skies and lovely rose-tinted spectacle about Bolehland, it has always been our Ketuanan Klowns, statistic manipulators and massagers, and fcuking stocks and shares traders at work hyping up a whole load self-serving hot fart, nothing Ketuanan and it’s lackeys, cronies and arse-lickers say can be trusted wan tiny bit!
Frankly, if Ketuanan is so great and everything is going just beautifully, you don’t need to hype up anything at all. Better than that, with the beautiful and wonderful way our sh*thole country is painted in the minds and mouths of the seriously deluded, you don’t need to subsidise anywan with such a massive amount of subsidies. But yet that happens – and in forever huge scales.
You see that picture of a huge pig farm, the pigs never stop eating and gobbling up everything. Why does the supremacy of Ketuanan mean fcuking leeches, vampires, rats, cockroaches etc need to be kept alive – and for such long fcuking time like forever? Pray, explain. Please do that in Manglish, if you use Ketuanan pidginspeak you’ll very quickly run out of words in the primitives lingi.
Maintain chicken ceiling price, bottled cooking oil subsidies, says PH By FMT Reporters / June 27, 2022 9:29 AM
https://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/nation/2022/06/27/maintain-chicken-ceiling-price-bottled-cooking-oil-subsidies-says-ph/
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There is no need to maintain the current ceiling prices for chicken and eggs and subsidies for bottled cooking oil, and it is definitely not a half-baked or a hasty move. The Government has to start off sometime, somewhere to cut down on the subsidy and now is a good time as any to begin with chicken, eggs and bottled cooking oil. From subsidy the focus should transition to availability ( self sufficiency ) and affordability ( Food security ).
Furthermore, the government is already looking into a new ceiling price for chicken. The bottled cooking oil are no longer affordable regardless of whether it is subsidized oil or non subsidized oil. Mostly, only the upper M40s and T20s will be able to afford the bottled cooking oil. The subsidized cooking oil sold at RM2.50 in 1kg poly bags should be made more and easily made available for B40s and the lower M40s as currently the hypermarkets are always displaying empty boxes with the reason being ‘Out Of Stock’. This situation needs to be corrected.
On the review of the allowances of CEOs and board members of GLCs and GLICs, is the PH coalition applying the same review for those in its own state’s incorporated group of companies and agencies (SGLC) under the PH State Govt? All these linked companies created by both sides of the political divide, are they in anyway impacting the Rakyat’s economy?
The call to launch large-scale protests nationwide over the government’s failure to address the rising cost of living by the Opposition is uncalled for, unnecessary, provocative and mischievous. This is what one would call making ” A Mountain Out of a Mole hill”.
We are not a nation like Sri Lanka whose leaders consisting of family members ran it to the ground and its citizen are now suffering.
In our Nation, the gas for cooking, fuel for transportation are easily available and its price affordable and is maintained. For cooking oil options are available. The price of meat, sea food and vegetables were already high during the Opposition governing. Though cost of living is somewhat rising but not all items are effected. We can always do without non essentials items. We just have to learn to live simple for now.
What did the opposition priorities or priority were, during their governing of our Nation. Did they look into food security and self sufficiency. Was this even mentioned during their 22 months of governing. Their, the PH coalition leader talked about introducing a 2nd national car manufacturing, another was gloating about a flying car, the transport minister introduced tint glasses for cars because it was hot and the education minister came up with black shoes as if this was what was needed to raise the standard of our nation’s education. What about their Agricultural minister, what did he do ? What about the rest of their ministers, what did they do?
If they were governing under the current situation, at best, they will lay the blame on the previous government, claim there is no money in the Nation’s coffers, the Nation is heavily in debt of about a trillion, all because of the previous Government’s mismanagement and will go on to tell the Rakyat to sacrifice and ‘ Ikat Perut ‘.
Take note, the Opposition now keeps pushing for subsidy and later will start to accuse and criticize the ruling government of not knowing how to manage its finance. These are the ways of the Opposition.
*** RM77.3bil Subsidies At ‘Dangerously High’ Level, Says Economist By Hakimie Amrie Hisamudin / June 28, 2022 8:30 AM
https://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/nation/2022/06/28/rm77-3bil-subsidies-at-dangerously-high-level-says-economist/
So, we need to be a thinking Rakyat, we should not be easily fooled by what the opposition always says.
End.