What is national distress?
When we are invaded.
When nature disaster strike; something huge like the Asian Tsunami.
When food crisis strike; not just temporarily shortage of sugar or cooking oil… but when people started to feel the hunger because of food shortage.
When hyperinflation… not when people are chatting in Starbucks on how expensive our fuel is, but when people can’t even afford a cup of coffee in mamak stall.
When people are started losing jobs and couldn’t find new jobs. When unemployment is largely due to lack of jobs and not because of the poor qualities (and some laziness) of our young graduates.
When the police and armed forces are becoming thugs. This is the one hanging on borderline… but set aside a few political cases, the police are still doing their job to fight crimes. Remember this, some of them are risking their lives to protect ours.
When democracy is irrelevant. Don’t tell me that our democracy is dead… we are given the rights to vote, and despite not being perfectly fair, we do have the power to determine which parties and people we want to form our government.
If Malaysia is in distress, what should we call other countries like Philippines or India? For name sake I don’t even think the likes of Philippines and India are in distress yet, let alone Malaysia?
Some Malaysians are just too pampered these days… distress? WTF.
Seems like tomorrow’s fuel-hike demo is going ahead in Kelana Jaya; hope that there won’t be any violent crash during the rally, and I hope that the protestors are fighting on the right cause and not for political reasons.
There is no point protesting against the petrol hike… the fuel subsidy was wrong and should have been gone long ago. It there is anything to complain about… it’s about corruption, poor public transportation and the government failure in improving our living standard for the past decade.
Inflation is something inevitable; what really strike Malaysians these days is the failure to improve our earning-capability since the 1997 economic crisis. With exceptions of a few professions, the salary and income levels of most jobs are not on par with inflation rate for the past decade… some sectors are actually falling behind the pre-1997 era.
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Employers wishing to recruit foreign workers must now advertise the job vacancies in their companies with the Electronic Labour Exchange for two weeks before their requests can be considered.
Home Affairs Minister Datuk Seri Radzi Sheikh Ahmad said the employers must show proof that they had advertised with the labour exchange set up by Human Resource Ministry…
“If proven that there has been no response from locals within that period, then the employers can apply to employ foreign workers and their applications will be considered by a committee.” [Bernama]
I have written in an earlier post regarding this matter, that Malaysian companies have not taken enough initiative for the past decade to hire locals to fill their vacancies, but went straight for foreign labour instead because they are cheap, and easy to find.
I am not sure what is the Electronic Labour Exchange, how it works or how effective it is… the move is however welcome nonetheless; at least it shows that the government is giving some thoughts to control the influx of foreign workers and opening more job opportunities for locals instead.
I saw something disturbing when I was having dinner at a restaurant in SS2, PJ on Sunday. There was a family having dinner as well, but while they were enjoying their meal… their Indonesian maid was sitting behind them waiting for them to finish their dinner.
I am not sure how most people will think about this, but I find it inhuman. It won’t cost much to have the maid having dinner together… those people were treating their maids like slaves.
If you read some Indonesian papers, like The Jakarta Post for example; you would often read some strong reactions from Indonesians about how their countrymen (and women) are badly treated in Malaysia… and I can’t blame them for being overreacted sometimes.
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Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi has revealed his “National Higher Education Strategic Plan Beyond 2020″ on Monday (August 27). His main 3 points are…
1. With immediate effect, greater autonomy for universities the chance to upgrade the institutions and source for funds for projects.
2. Introduction of Apex University - to be identified from the existing 23 public universities - would even be allowed to recruit their own faculty and students. Only the best students will be admitted into the apex universities.
3. Audit assessment committees, comprising experts, will be established to evaluate and rate academic achievements in higher institutions of learning.
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Ministry of Human Resources will set a new rule to prohibit the requirement for Mandarin speakers in job vacancies in order to increase employment opportunities for Malays and Indians, said deputy minister Abdul Rahman Bakar. [Utusan]
Honestly, how often do we see jobs requirement that requires Mandarin speaking ability? You are not likely to find more than 10% of the job vacancies on Star or NST that has the requirement… so what is the big fuss about?
Besides, the Malay papers and the minister should think it in broader way… why do people want to hire Mandarin speakers? Most of the time it’s about profit, profit and profit!!!
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I have read a recent report that Indonesian workers have surpassed the Indians as the 3rd largest ethnic group in Malaysia. I can’t remember the exact figure; if I remember correctly there are more than 2 millions legal Indonesian workers in Malaysia at the moment.
Do we really need so many foreign labour in Malaysia?
The government and private sector always claim that we are hiring foreign workers because nobody is willing to do those jobs; their claims is not 100% true.
We were probably short of labour forces when the economic was booming in late 80s; we had to find resources from oversea especially in the construction field. The construction companies then realized that they can get cheaper labour from foreign countries, and thus not willing to hire local workers with higher price.
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Conglomerate Cahya Mata Sarawak Bhd (CMS) and global Anglo-Australian miner Rio Tinto Tuesday (August 7) signed an agreement for the proposed development of an aluminium smelter in Sarawak. [Bernama]
Malaysia doesn’t have rich resource of bauxite (raw mineral for aluminium), we don’t have a large market for aluminium, and our labor cost is no longer the cheapest these days… the only reason for Rio Tinto to invest in Sarawak is because of its demand for high power supply, which the controversial Bakun Dam will be able to provide.
This raise my questions… why do we build the Bakun Dam at the first place? Isn’t Bakun built to supply sufficient energy for Malaysia for the next few decades?
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