Najib's Election Budget
Let us remind
ourselves that the budget wasn’t Najib’s gift to us Malaysians. He’s not giving
us anything that’s not ours already and ours to be. It’s our gift to him asking
him to manage our finances carefully. And his government hasn’t done well at
all. This is the 16th deficit budget. But we are ahead of ourselves.
More of that later.
We must
remind ourselves that the Finance Ministers is asking to appropriate a sum of
money from the consolidated fund to be applied to specific purposes. In other
words, he is doing the asking. We must ask him politely to desist from all the sneering
and cynicism that only an immature and childish person does.
We expected
the finance minister what more when he is also the PM to act with decorum
respecting the tradition of adversarial debates in Parliament. The Opposition
leader was honorable enough to hear the PM drone on, the PM is not on hand to
see and hear what the MP from Permatang Pauh to see. Instead his stand in
debates by correcting pronunciations and so forth. The government which trivializes
and dismisses our legitimate representatives ought to be dismissed very soon.
The Finance
Minister is asking OUR money. The money his government has collected from 10%
of the 10-million workforce. The money he collected from oil revenue, port
revenue, from our forests, from our mines. He would have collected more from
our GLCs if GLCs have done their jobs well and made profits. Instead we know
that most GLCs are sorry excuses for UMNO warlords to pilfer money from.
That was
why he begun by asking Mr Speaker Sir, I
beg to move the Bill entitled “An Act to apply a sum from the Consolidated Fund
for the service of the year 2013 and to appropriate that sum for the service of
that year” be read a second time.
Once we set
that aside, then we can remind ourselves that the money he wants to give out isn’t
his in the first place. It’s ours. His government is managing our collective money.
So when you ask money from us, please do so politely. It’s the mark of immaturity
and infantile behavior of the highest order, when the presentation of such a
serious bill is laced with arrogance, sneering and driven by the obsession of
scoring points over His Majesty’s Opposition. Whatever was positively presented
earlier was completely nullified by his concluding remarks.
It’s us you
need to convince not Anwar Ibrahim, Lim Kit Siang or Haji Hadi. You certainly aren’t doing that with your
arrogant showmanship.
I need to
say HM’s Opposition since UMNO and its supporters forget, the opposition has
legitimacy. Also, in Selangor, Penang, Kelantan and Kedah- UMNO IS the
Opposition. Don’t you have legitimacy over there?
Here are
some positive points about the Budget. The 2013 bajet was presented better than
the 2012 budget. At least this time the finance minister didn’t waste too much
time camouflaging the lack of substance with flowery language. He tells us
quickly how much is next year’s proposed spending and admits this is a deficit
budget. Our revenue is expected to be 208.6 billion. It increased slightly over
last year’s revenue of RM207.2 billion. That is, revenue increased by
0.68%.
Except for the
unnecessary mudslinging, next year’s proposed budget is presented businesslike.
That’s where the positivity ends because after that, he doesn’t understand the
business of managing our economy.
The world economy.
He doesn’t seem
to know what’s happening to the world economy. Therefore he can’t quite get his
mind to decide how to describe the world economy. Early on he says the world economy
is uncertain only in order to suggest that he can handle our economy better. At
other places he says, the world economy is improving in order to suggest, our
economy will also benefit from an improving world economy.
The economy
outside hasn’t got any long term solutions yet. The economy of Europe is in the
doldrums. They are in that position because of the policies that are being
played out in this country of ours. If we continue what BN does, we will also
go that route. We have low productivity, high costs, bloated and inefficient bureaucracy
infested with rampant corruption. We do mega projects at questionable costing
lending credibility to suspicions that all these are propped up project providing
excuses for cronies to make money. The RM500 million river of life project? Wasn’t
that spoken for by a company linked to Hishamudin Hussein? What has Rosmah Mansor done to earn RM 111
million for the dubious Permata Negara Project?
As a person
coming from Pekan, I have only one hope. That come GE13, despite winning in
Pekan but losing nationwide, the UMNO division office bearers will stand
holding hands on the new Sultan Abu Bakar Bridge in Pekan to jump all at once
into the river. They must do that in unison, because no one dares do it alone. There
isn’t anyone brave enough in UMNO nowadays. The dirty work is farmed out to the
UMNO youth leader who is being arrowed even by his UMNO counterparts. At other
times, UMNO’s dirty work is contracted out to Ibrahim Ali, Zul Nordin, Ezam Mat
Nor and the man who wants to correct the Muslim’s aqidah.
Alas, if
there are crocodiles in the Pahang River, they will refuse to eat the UMNO
people up fearing they in turn will lose the hunting skills.
Our Bourse reflects a healthy economy?
The
optimism with our stock exchange is misplaced. 65-70% of the companies listed
are not performing well at all and deserved to be PN4ed! Their shares are not
traded at all. The high index is the result of the big numbers scored by a few
major players. It certainly does not reflect the state of our economy. The SC
must cleanse its Aegean Stables first before admitting others who want to
sucker the public. Our economy is not a paper economy la Mr Finance Minister.
The health of our economy must be judged in terms of the real economy-
productivity, asset building, capacity building, exports, and all that.
The new
IPOs he triumphantly declared will only suck in more public money and the
savings people give up to buy shares will be converted into paper money. There are
no direct benefits unless stock buyers sell higher than IPO prices. If the
settlers haven’t sold their 800 units right after the IPO, they will have to
wait a long time to see any profit. The FGV will go the KUB way. The shares in
the KL Bourse will nosedive as our economy continues to be pillaged and raped
by UMNO-linked players.
Affordable housing.
Who the
hell is advising him on the construction of affordable homes? The homes will be
constructed by PR1MA with an average price of RM 150,000. Who can afford the
houses at that price? Our new graduates earning RM2500 pcm? That’s all a load of BS. When he announces
that PR1MA will build 6000 new homes in Negeri Sembilan, I have to ask my friends
where? NS practically has no squatters. People already have homes in Seremban,
Rembau, Kuala Kelawang, Nilai, Jelebu or wherever. The pressure of demand for
housing is in the Klang Valley where people work. Even SPNB has practically
surrendered to build houses in Klang Valley.
So I ask
where is the logic to build houses in Negeri Sembilan. Unless of course the
real reason is to enrich PR1MA which is headed by Jamaludin Jarjis. Najib has
got his priorities wrong.
It will be
easy for Pakatan Rakyat to repair the damage done by Najib’s government. It’s
no big deal. We have a simple rule. If we want to damage the country, give it
to BN. if we want the make the country worse off, let BN do the repairing.
Why is
UMNO/BN so obsessed with having to know what is PR’s shadow cabinet? We don’t even
have BN’s shadow cabinet because they are not sure they will be in parliament
come GE13.
To be
continued…..
7 comments:
malaysia memang tak berotak...panjang lebar nak debat tapi Orang kat Pakatan Selangor ada AIR FREE....negeri lain UMNO-BN yang mana ada free AIR?? Kalau masih tak tahu yang Pakatan lebih Best dari UMNO-BN ...maka orang tu ada batu kat kepala otak atau harus mampus supaya kita jimat Kos nak pelihara dia!!....itu saja kesimpulan!!
Dear Sakmongkol
“It’s the mark of immaturity and infantile behavior of the highest order, when the presentation of such a serious bill is laced with arrogance, sneering and driven by the obsession of scoring points over His Majesty’s Opposition.”
I watched part of President Najib’s budget presentation. Oops, did I refer to him as president? Well, I can’t blame myself. Najib has been pretending to be a president when in fact he is a prime minister. I see his pictures hung from posters on street lamps. He sends out post cards with his picture on one side, and on the other a message seeking my vote. He talks as though the rest of UMNO/BN does not count – he is the party and he is the coalition. He goes to Perth on holiday on a chartered jet, costing this middle-income country RM9 million. What’s wrong with MAS first class?
But he hasn’t got the class that people might call “presidential”. In a democracy, the PM goes to parliament to engage and debate with the opposition. That’s the nature of our democracy, and the best arguments win. No, he does not do that. He abuses his privileged time slot for the budget presentation to attack the opposition, to engage in electioneering. It was the wrong place and wrong occasion for that sort of thing. And the next day, he was absent from parliament when the leader of the opposition spoke. How could we have an intelligent debate? How can there be a democracy when ideas are not subjected to the heat treatment and cut and thrust of parliamentary debate? I switched off the TV at that point because it was disgusting to watch him abuse the privilege of his position and the democratic process. Of course the brain-impaired BN MPs were thumping their desks to score little brownie points. What else can they do when they cannot think?
If this is the attitude of the PM and that is the quality of the BN MPs, what hope is there for Malaysia with BN in power? How can we ever reduce poverty, uplift the livelihood of that 40% poor? BN MPs thump when they hear that little meaningless and demeaning cash morsels would be dished out to the perennial underclass, a class of Malaysians enslaved by UMNO/BN power abuse and corruption. If after 55 years of uninterrupted power these paltry sums mean something to 40-50% of our population, it can only mean abject economic and social failure of the UMNO/BN governments. There is nothing to cheer about. UMNO/BN MPs should instead cringe in shame.
Dato,the election budget is just a gimmick.The GOM is already deeply in debt because of the huge borrowings indulged by the people put in charge.Where is the money coming from to fund these deficits.To issue more GOM bonds.Then the country will soon be forced to pay the sky high interest rates of the Pigg's nations.
Or they can tax those middle class tax payers till kingdom come.After all very few people in the middle class are cronies of Umnoputras and their siblings.Most political cronies and their families are in the top few percent category.So it is more or less taking the money from your right hand and giving back a small portion to your left hand,and the rest to some of your not doing so well fellow Malaysians,including some illegal ones.
The ruling elites have screwed everyone except their cronies,the latest being the Felda settlers.With hundreds of billions hoarded in offshore bank accounts,what more they want even the underwear of the settlers too.Every last penny belonging to the settlers are being squeezed out.
Now even CPO is trading at latest RM2,230 yesterday.Beginning of year it was trading at an average of RM3,300.It is down almost RM1,800 from its all time high of RM4,000.My calling of CPO trading at below RM 2,500 at year's end and eventually down to RM1,500-1,200 in the next 2-3 years will come sooner than later.
What many people do not understand is that CPO was going up was riding piggyback on the bullmarket of soybeans.Because of the drought in the US,soybean crops was hit hard due to the lack of rainfall.And the US will not buy CPO from Malaysia and Indonesia to subsidised the shortage of soybean oil.We all know that the soybean farmers have spend tens if not hundreds of millions lobbying against the import of CPO in the last few decades.
Anybody who works or have friends or relatives working in palm oil mills or industry will tell you that they have storage tanks full of stock with nowhere to ship.Mills are cutting down on production due to the glut.Just go over to Indonesia and see where are all the rubber plantations gone to.
In the eighties when I was working over there,rubber wood processing plants were the craze.Indonesians and Malaysians were building factories processing rubber wood,as rubber wood logs were selling so cheap,as they had no where to go.And rubber logs had to be chemically treated by a couple of days and kiln dried or they will get stained and of no more commercial value.
Now Indonesia had many more times in terms of acreages of oil palm plantations than Malaysia.Thanks to Mahathir's PNB taking over of Guthrie's plantations that sent the orang putih planters heading for Indonesia.Or else they will be ten years or more behind Malaysia in terms of technology and funds.
Now that rain has been falling in the midwest of the US soybean prices have dropped two dollars in the last few weeks.And CPO ridding piggyback has fallen more,like a rock as it makes more sense as CPO are not in shortage.What many people do not understand is that China alone cannot buy all the copper,gold,crude oil and CPO of the world.One country cannot support or sustain the world's economy even if it is on track to become the world's largest economy in the next decade or so.
The world's largest economy,the US is in a mess.Europe is in a bigger mess.Japan is in a deflation mood the lasr three decades with nowhere to go.China is already slowing down.Look at their stock market,already down more that 60%.When China gets hit hard later this year,the whole world will be kadang kabut.Malaysia will get hit even harder as its debts are now out of control and unmanagable,unlike Singapore.
The only thing that amazed me is the share price of FGV.It is stuck at around the RM4.80 area.I always said that it will drop under RM4.00then to RM3.00 and lower as CPO prices drop like a rock.It can only meant one thing.Those that already want to sell has already sold.The rest of the shares are in the pockets of strong hands.Like EPF,PNB,GLC's,Cornerstones,Umno cronies and frontmen.The public will be only holding a minimal few percent at most.
It shows the willpower and mettle of the Najib administration,to support the share prices of FGV at all cost,so as not to lose the support of the Felda schemes in the coming GE.The opposition should take heed of their determination to stay in power and not to under estimate the Umno/BN.
Dato, if I may add. Those jokers who are supposed to jump into the river together. They need to be tied to an anchor or something to make sure they sink. Cos shit floats man!
Dear Dato,
The hand out of RM 500 to the raayat divided by the full term of BN in power that is, 60 months equals to RM9 and this can be easily off set by the increase in indirect tax. Tell the raayat to wake up. If PR is the goverment I can save RM150 per month.
the biggest bribe budget >> compared to singapore which have no resources, our budget is a JOKE LAH.. 14 years deficit n 500 billions in borrowings .. any one can do better lah>> borrow -borrow -- n spend n spend,, so easy to do ??poverty all over the nation?? oh poverty - please get lost<< still here to stay- oh poverty
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