Najib's Do or Die

Hantu Laut

Well done! Mr Prime Minister.That's the way how it should be.A man who is not afraid of losing his job will do a better job.

Najib says his head is on the chopping block for purging rent seekers and political patronage and I believe him.

It's about time a leader take the bold step to stop this despicable practice of political largasse, giving huge contracts to party members,cronies, sycophants and hangers-on who do not have the capability to do the job other than sitting on their asses collecting million of ringgit by selling off the contracts.

The right thing to do is to have fair distribution of these contracts to all Malaysians and where preference for bumiputra participation are required, a special category of tender system exclusively for bumiputra contractors could be set up.There can be a two-category system, one for all Malaysian and the other exclusively for bona fide bumiputra contractors.In this way bumiputras are not deprived of the chance to share the economic pie and can compete among themselves under the new economic model.The other catergory should be opened to all Malaysians including bumiputras who think they can compete with the non-bumiputras. In the case of projects of extreme urgency or of sensitive nature the prime minister can dispense with the tender system and allow the projects to be on negotiated basis.

The present system is a 'catch penny' situation where the person given the contract is only concerned about the money but not the quality of the product.That's why, over the years, we have numerous abandoned projects and sub-standard products delivered to the government and no action taken against the culprit because he happened to be a powerful party member or a rich and powerful crony.The system has made those kind of bumiputras to become the abominable leeches, continuing to demand more and more projects to feed their insatiable greed and laziness.

The ruling party is full of them and think they should be given the handouts as of rights. Where do you think the easy money goes to? Certainly, not to fund further businesses because they have none.It goes to building palatial homes, buying posh cars and branded goods.When the money level is low they would go again for more and if they don't get, they start bad mouthing the leadership and some would even abandon the party and jump to the opposition hoping for better luck in the event the opposition won the elections and took over the government.

I have seen this happening since the formation of Malaysia and you see the same politicians being recycled over and over again.Sabah, used to be the place for recycling politicians but now politicians in the Peninsula seemed to have joined the circus and found the long-term benefits of recycling.

As I have said in my earlier article there is nothing wrong with the NEP if put to its proper use, helping the poor and needy Malays and bumiputras.

Najib needs to change the perception that the NEP is not to make the rich richer but to help give the poor and needy a decent living.The NEP should be retained for that purpose and that purpose only.Under his NEM he can create a new model to help other needy Malaysians the same way as helping needy bumiputras, therefore, providing fair and equitable treatment to all Malaysians.

There are many other things that he needs to revamp to truly show that he is serious about changing the social landscape of this nation.

Some, maybe, painful to do away with but unless he swallows the bitter pill now and takes his chances and between the risk of being castrated by his party members and the risk of no UMNO government tomorrow, I would say go for it.

Do or die!

Below is an article from Time Magazine published on 4 April 2010.

Affirmative action: Bad for growth?

Posted by Michael Schuman Sunday, April 4, 2010 at 9:55 pm

My post today is about a country that doesn't usually get much attention in debates about global economic issues – Malaysia. But don't be too quick to click to the next webpage. What's going on these days in that small, tropical nation is raising interesting questions about the relationship between social justice and economic development.

Malaysia's prime minister, Najib Razak, is in the process of overhauling what is likely the world's most extensive and intensive affirmative action program, called the New Economic Policy, or NEP. First instituted in the early 1970s, the NEP was designed to expand the role of the impoverished Malay community in the national economy. The Malays represent the majority of the population, but back when the NEP was launched, Chinese immigrants and foreign firms owned the vast majority of the country's assets. To fix that, the Malay-dominated government adopted all kinds of rules and regulations that gave special perquisites to Malays. Malay-owned companies received preferential treatment when bidding for state contracts, for example, while the government mandated Malay investors receive 30% of initial public offerings on the local stock market. It was an amazing experiment in social reconstruction.Read more.

NEP Is Only A Small Clog In The System

Hantu Laut

Najib announced the NEM (New Economic Model) on 30 March 2010.He hasn't even started, so how could he stalled? Asia Sentinel commemorated his one year in office with this story.

Certainly, one should not expect everyone to support or agree with his new policy. The oppositions, no matter, how good his new policy is, would surely find fault with it and not gave him the support.It is what the American called "hyperpartisanship", a sharply polarized situation in which political parties are in fierce disagreement with each other.

You don't need reason to disagree, just disagree for the sake of disagreeing. Lim Kit Siang has mastered the art of hyperpartisanship. He is the biggest and most fierce rabble rouser and becoming the most dangerous man in the country, raising racial and religious issues without blinking an eye.

Those who have benefited from the NEP in a big way and filled their pockets to bursting point are some of those who think thay have achieved success on their on own merits and now think they don't need the NEP.These are the few Malays who changed their tune hoping to jump on the next bandwagon that they reckoned will ride to victory in the next general elections in 2013 and with it bringing a new kind of gravy train that they hope to benefit from. They came in all shapes, sizes and intellectuality.

A well-known columnist who during the Mahathir's era think that the NEP was a great idea and tried to sell it to South Africa as affirmative action for the blacks seems to have changed his mind about the goodness of the NEP.When Anwar Ibrahim was in UMNO and was deputy prime minister he did not see anything wrong with the NEP, had no objection or made any attempt to fight for change.A well-known lawyer who was once a big recipient of the NEP, directly or indirectly, have now changed his wavelength.The NEP had become a distinct and distant memory.

Are they for real?

I am not a great proponent of the NEP, at least, not the way it is being plonked around now.It would have been good if it had remained in its original shape, that is to bring the whole Malay community at par with the other races in term of economic benefits and standard of living.It has, in some ways, achieved some of its objectives.

Forty years ago, most Malays dreamed only to be civil servants, uncomplicated, risk free and secured job.The civil service was geared to accept mostly Malays.It shunned the mindshares from commerce.Almost all economic activities were in the hands of the Chinese.Malays, were mostly rural agrarian and urban working class.Little or no emphasis were given to commercialise the Malays then. Now, there are large number of Malay middle class and increasing number of professionals and businessmen.Without the NEP, the progress would have been painfully slow.

It is not the NEP at fault, it is the way it is being abused that had turned it into a four-letter word, euphonious for those who benefited from it and perfunctory disquiet for those who don't. It has become a gravy train to enrich a handful of rent-seekers.

Most of the huge contracts given to these parasitic rent-seekers would eventually land in some Chinese towkay's lap and worse they would come back for more and more of these handouts through their political connections.The intended purpose of making them entrepreneurs become self-defeating.This is the hickey side of the NEP that we should be fighting to get rid of completely, not the NEP as a whole.There is no point scrapping the NEP, wholesale, if such practices still continue under other pretexts.

In a nutshell, kill political largesse and corruptions, the NEP is not the scourge that destroying this country and should not be made the sacrificial lamb.

Power and money are something difficult to give up.Man's greed for power and wealth have no bounds.For some, power and wealth precede ethics and morality.In politics, the ingrates and unprincipled will always change allegiance to serve their greed for more power and money.They say one thing today and say something else tomorrow to feed their insatiable appetite.Many of this type are now courting Anwar Ibrahim and if they were writers and columnists the writings have changed to obsequiously serving the oppositions.

Ethically questionable behaviours of politicians and official malfeasance are what we should be concerned with.The NEP is only a small clog in the system.Corruptions and abuse of power are the ones that's killing this country.This was where Pak Lah had failed miserably causing political upheaval and throwing the nation into political dissension and instability.If he had pushed through his promised reforms he would have been the strongest and most powerful prime minister today.

Would Najib be in the same shoes? Not likely.The man is a worker, he only gets forty winks. He has the nation at heart and is prepared to work hard to heal the wounded tiger.He can only succeed if his ilk gave him the support he needed.

The result of the Hulu Selangor by-election would be the first measure of his and UMNO existential political future.

Censored In Singapore:Selling Out Principle

By CLARK HOYT

Published: April 3, 2010

LAST month, on the same day The New York Times praised Google for standing up to censorship in China, a sister newspaper, The International Herald Tribune, apologized to Singapore’s rulers and agreed to pay damages because it broke a 1994 legal agreement and referred to them in a way they did not like.

The rulers had sued for defamation 16 years ago, saying a Herald Tribune Op-Ed column had implied that they got their jobs through nepotism. The paper wound up paying $678,000 and promising not to do it again. But in February, it named Lee Kuan Yew, the founding prime minister, and his son, Lee Hsien Loong, the prime minister now, in an Op-Ed article about Asian political dynasties.

After the Lees objected, the paper said its language “may have been understood by readers to infer that the younger Mr. Lee did not achieve his position through merit. We wish to state clearly that this inference was not intended.” The Herald Tribune, wholly owned by The New York Times Company, apologized for “any distress or embarrassment” suffered by the Lees. The statement was published in the paper and on the Web site it shares with The Times.

Some readers were astonished that a news organization with a long history of standing up for First Amendment values would appear to bow obsequiously to an authoritarian regime that makes no secret of its determination to cow critics, including Western news organizations, through aggressive libel actions. Singapore’s leaders use a local court system in which, according to Stuart Karle, a former general counsel of The Wall Street Journal, they have never lost a libel suit.

The notion that it could be defamatory to call a political family a dynasty seems ludicrous in the United States, where The Times has routinely applied the label to the Kennedys, the Bushes and the Clintons. But Singapore is a different story.

Lee Kuan Yew once testified, according to The Times, that he designed the draconian press laws to make sure that “journalists will not appear to be all-wise, all-powerful, omnipotent figures.” Four years ago, The Times quoted his son as saying, “If you don’t have the law of defamation, you would be like America, where people say terrible things about the president and it can’t be proved.”

Steven Brostoff of Arlington, Va., wondered whether The Times had other agreements like the one with the Lees, and asked, “What conclusions should we draw about how news coverage from these countries is slanted?” Zeb Raft of the University of Alberta, Edmonton, asked if The Times was admitting that certain world leaders “deserve to be treated with deference. This is the implication of the apology.”

George Freeman, a Times Company lawyer, said the 1994 agreement was the only one he knew about and that it applied only to The Herald Tribune. Bill Keller, the executive editor of The Times, said, “Nobody in this company has ever told me what our reporters can write — or not write — about Singapore.” He said the Times newsroom has no agreements with any government about what can be reported. “We don’t work that way.”

Andrew Rosenthal, the editor of the editorial page, said, “If we have something that needs to be said on the editorial or Op-Ed pages, on any subject, we will say it, clearly and honestly.”

That is what the late William Safire did on the Op-Ed page in 2002, when he criticized Bloomberg News for “kowtowing to the Lee family” by apologizing for an article about the elevation of the younger Lee’s wife to run a state-owned investment company. Bloomberg, he said, had “just demeaned itself and undermined the cause of a free online press.”

Safire wrote that he took “loud exception” in 1994 when The Herald Tribune, then owned jointly by the Times Company and The Washington Post Company, “cravenly caved” over an article by Philip Bowring — the same Hong Kong-based columnist who sparked last month’s dust-up. “I doubt such a sellout of principle will happen again.”

Richard Simmons was the president of The Herald Tribune in 1994 and authorized the agreement that was broken last month — an “undertaking” by the company’s lawyers to prevent a repetition of the language that offended the Lees. “We had, in my view, no choice,” he said. “What the American media absolutely refuse to recognize is Singapore operates on a different set of legal rules than does the United States.” He said Western news organizations can accept the legal system there or leave.

For The Herald Tribune and all the other news organizations that have paid damages to Singapore’s rulers (The Wall Street Journal, The Economist, Bloomberg) or had their circulation limited there (Time, The Asian Wall Street Journal, The Economist), the choice has been to stay.Read more.

Run With The Hare And Hunt With The Hounds

Hantu Laut

I am not really sure what to make out of Razaleigh's campaign on the oil royalty issue.It was a Kelantan problem.Why come to Sabah telling Sabahans giving them false hope that they could get more oil royalty if they negotiate with the Federal government which I presumed Razaleigh knew fully well to be a lost cause, at this moment, at least.

Despite his untiring effort to get it for Kelantan, the Federal government refused to entertain his argument that Kelantan is legally entitled to such payment.What's the point of telling Sabahans that they can get more when he can't even convince his party cadres in the ruling party to agree with his interpretation of the law.

I also have great difficulty to decide whether the Tengku is still in UMNO or working for the oppositions.He seems to be using the opposition's platform to voice his disagreement and has turned it into a nation wide campaign.

If I remember well it was him that got the Berjaya government to sign the 5% royalty after the toppling of Mustapha regime who, steadfastly, refused to accept the meagre payment by the Federal government.The oil royalty was one of the thorny issues during Mustapha's time and the cause of his downfall.

Maybe, it's about time Razaleigh decide whether he wants to stay in UMNO and sing the same song or leave the party and continue with his crusade.

He certainly can't run with the hare and hunt with the hounds.


'Nothing to stop review'

Published on: Sunday, April 04, 2010

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Penampang: There is nothing stopping the people of Sabah from calling upon the State Government to seek a re-negotiation with the Federal Government and Petronas on the quantum of oil royalty.

"If Sabahans want to hold a fresh negotiation through the State Government there is no one that can stop them because what we have is based on the original agreement," said former Finance Minister Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah.

"And if now they think they don't want the (current amount of 5pc) royalty then go ahead, ask the State Government to re-negotiate with Federal Government É I am not appointed as the State Government's advisor so its up to you," said Razaleigh, himself a former Petronas Chairman.

He said if the people and the State Government felt they have the capability to demand for a raise in the oil royalty then they should just go ahead.

Razaleigh, who was responsible for drawing up the Petroleum Development Act (PDA) 1974 that led to setting up the national petroleum company, Petronas, said this in response to questions after presenting a talk entitled "Sabah's Oil For Whom?" at the Hongkod Koisaan, KDCA, Friday night.

The event was organised by United Sabah Dusun Association (Usda) in collaboration with 14 other organisations. Some 1,000 people attended the talk that began at 8pm and lasted till nearly midnight.

On the question of how come Sabah and the other major oil producing states in the country continue to be lagging behind, the Gua Musang MP said poverty issues are not something that can be resolved immediately, even though the State has an abundance of oil resources.

He said the issues were inter-related with social, education and health, among others. However, it was also up to the people to ask the State Government on how the royalty was being spent (over the years), especially in the context of eradicating poverty.

"Ask the Government how the royalty had been spent.

As long as we continue to be mum we will not get the protection that we should get," he said.

To a question from Usda asking if there is a mechanism that can tell the volume of oil and gas taken out from Sabah, he said this was a matter of trust.

"If we want to measure it can be done. We can install meter gauge to measure how much oil and gas is taken out from Sabah. Now the question is whether this is necessary?" he said.

Such information, according to him, could be obtained from the Statistics Department and from the volume of Petronas exports.

On the issue of gas from Sabah to be channelled to Sarawak through pipelines, which should instead be used in Sabah by setting up a Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) Processing Plant in the State, he said it should be the way.

"I am also curious why gas obtained from Sabah has to be channelled to Sarawak although Sabah really needs its own LNG plant," he said.

To the question from Ikatan Anak Anak Semenanjung on whether the Kelantan case where its royalty cash payment was being paid as an ex-gratia payment by the Federal Government could be challenged in court, he said in the affirmative.

"Anything can be challenged in the court to get justice but whether this will bring benefit or not is a different issue (as) the Federal Government have the power so they can do whatever they like it seems," he said.

Razaleigh said since he was the one together with late second Prime Minister Tun Abdul Razak responsible for drafting the PDA, he knew very well that there is no such provision in the Act on ex-gratia payment in place of the oil royalty.

"Our view and the Federal Government is different but I hope the Federal Government would be able to interpret the Act based on the real understanding," he said.

The PDA was drafted to utilise the oil from the waters of east coast in Semenanjung for developing the backward states there, he said.

Earlier, he said the total royalty paid to Sabah from 2004 to 2007 was RM1.23 billion, Sarawak (RM4.281 billion) and Terengganu (RM7.3 billion).Daily Express.

Razaleigh other story here.