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.

Singaporeans are paying a despatch boy RM2500 a month while most fresh graduates won’t be getting that much in Malaysia. Off course there are arguments that the cost of living would be higher in Singapore, but their definite advantage is that their overall standard of living would not be affected as much by global effects because of their higher earning power.

The effect of globalisation has become more apparent these days; inflations and cost of living is not something that we can control alone unless the country is self-sufficient in everything. The logical option to keeping our living sustainable is to increase our production level, and thus the income level of general citizens… and it’s something that the government has to think and work on.

We need to have a plan, a solid idea of what we want our country to be in the next 5, 10 or 20 years. One of the reasons why I am not against removing the petrol subsidy is that the money could be better spent (set aside the corruption issue first) on other development instead of protection policies. It’s better to teach people to fish than to give them fishes.

What the lower income group should fight for are policies that could increase their income level and a fair distribution of wealth. It’s unthinkable that some working classes are earning less than RM500 a month; that’s an exploitation to our labour forces. It’s a fair thing that skillful workers or educated peope should earn more than those who are not… but surely the hardwork itself could be rewarded better.

Malaysia need to rebrand ourselves; we are branded as a cheap and resourceful place for foreign investors in late 80s and the 90s, but with the rising of China, India and Vietnam etc… we are not having the advantage we used to have. Malaysia need to learn to stop relying heavily on FDI and create our own branding… we need to optimise our profit levels and minimise wastage, and the government needs to lead by example and Malaysians should work hard on improving ourselves.

Finally, instead of blaming solely on the government for the hardship these days, some Malaysians need to reflect on ourselves too… some of us have been too complacent with ourselves for the past decade or two; some of us have been taking too many things for granted; some of us have been living inside caves for failing to realise what’s going around; some of us have been mere fools to think that government has to be responsible to spoon feed them forever.

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 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.

I know some Malaysians will retaliate saying that Indonesians have caused massive social problems here, which is partly true. However, mind that it’s our government and our private sectors that brought them in… we asked for it.

Just yesterday I read that there are 1.87 million foreign workers in Malaysia; I can safely assume that majority of them are from Indonesia. If those illegal Indonesian workers are included we could have 1.5-2 million Indonesians in Malaysia… to be honest, I don’t feel comfortable with the numbers at all.

I am strongly against over-relying on foreign labours, but the government obviously doesn’t bother much about the future impact of those foreign workers here. Mind that it’s easy to get them here, difficult to send them home.

Appreciate your Indonesian maid

At the meantime, some Malaysians should stop treating Indonesian workers like rubbish. Indonesian maids in particular are being abused… when I say abuse, it doesn’t necessary means physical, but mental as well. Read my starting paragraph, fit in the shoes of that Indonesian maid… and how would we feel if we are treated that way?

I don’t need to read the news to know how badly Indonesian maids are treated in Malaysia; some close friends and relatives are showing cruelty in this matter… verbal abuse is common, and the maids are often over-working from 7-11.

Malaysians should really appreciate what their maids have done for them. They are lowly paid, but their existence has allowed many parents to go to work instead of having on of them staying home to take care of their kids. Even if it’s not for this reason, they sure help a lot in household matters… you won’t want to do their job even if you are paid double of what they are doing.

Appreciate your Indonesian maid. If you are in business and have hired some other Indonesian workers, be thankful as well.

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.

I don’t think Badawi’s plan is going to work; he has no idea on what is happening with our local universities at all. His plans are based on his own perception without researching into the problems… his plans provides no solutions at all. Malaysia will be lucky if his plans are not worsening our current education state.

Political Issue

Giving more autonomy to universities sounds good; but Pak Lah should know that the politics within local universities (public U in particular) is nothing less than the country politics. Lots of the lecturers are not interested in teaching, but seeking their own agenda for higher post and influence.

Besides, the racial bias of public universities’ top management is one of the worst in any sectors in Malaysia. There was a mass exodus of non-bumiputera academicians when Malaysia started introducing private universities in the 90s… money was one of the main reasons, the unfair treatment from public U is another major factor.

When I was in UM some 7-8 years ago; they were some lecturers from India and Pakistan. Set aside their English accent, they were great lecturers, but were treated with no respect at all by other local lecturers.

[Read Lim Kit Siang's story on the bias issue]

Research Funding and Credibility

Our universities are never short of research funding; it’s just that most funds are not properly managed and wasted needlessly.

I have a friend that works in the intellectual property (IP) field… I was told that the local universities are spending hundreds of thousands (probably millions) monthly in hiring IP agency to file their ‘creation’. The thing is, most of those creations are worthless and won’t bring any academic or commercial value.

I have a few friends that are doing (or have done) their Master and PhD degrees in local universities… I always laugh at how easy their postgraduate degrees could be obtained, and they know that it is a fact.

One of my friends is graduating as a PhD holder from USM, he was paid by the university to be a research assistant while obtaining his PhD, but all he did for the past 5-6 years was watching porn and playing online games. Bravo!

Apex University? We had that in the 80s

It’s tough to get in local universities prior to the 90s, for non-bumiputeras in particular. We didn’t need to identify a specific ‘Apex University’ back then, the university go-ers were capable of evaluating the best university of their own, and because spaces were limited, only qualified students were admitted to the best university.

The whole ‘best university getting best students’ scenario was crashed when Malaysia decided to open university after university in the last decade without considering the quality of both the academicians and the in-take undergraduates.

If I remember correctly… early 90s we have 7 public universities; late 90s we have 9 public and a few private; and less than a decade later, we have 23 public universities and countless private universities. Malaysia doesn’t have the pool of qualified academicians to maintain the level of all the universities we have… some of the universities have to resort to sub-standard academicians.

What’s the point of having bunches of unqualified graduates?

One of the biggest mistakes Philippines has made in the 80s was producing large number of graduates while not having enough working opportunities… and it seems like Malaysia is heading the same direction by giving out degrees too easily.

What’s the point of producing large numbers of graduates if we don’t have enough relevant job opportunities for them? Besides, the large intake has jeopardized the academic level or local universities… some of the students shouldn’t be allowed in universities at all. On the other hand, some graduates shouldn’t be allowed to graduate. Large number of graduates are allowed to graduate due to other factors, and not based on academic achievements.

The dilemma for some private sectors these days is that they are not capable of finding enough good fresh grads to fulfill their vacancies.

They have problems in finding good candidates to fill in positions that don’t need a degree holder as well, because they are simply too many degree holders… and this created a large gap of qualification to fill in positions like typists and office admins etc. SPM graduates are not good enough for that, and degree holders don’t want to do that; most of them rather stay unemployed.

Language barrier

We have undergraduates that are poor in English, we have lecturers that have bad English as well, and we have lecturers that can’t understand BM at all.

The language issue is a huge problem for local universities. We have to resort to bilingual learning, but that’s not efficient. We certainly can’t go for all BM teaching at the moment because we don’t have enough local academicians to support the cause. We can’t go for all English teaching as well because some of students and lecturers are so bad at it.

In my days I had course-mates that had to finish their thesis in BM while their supervisors were foreigners that couldn’t understand most of the words. My course-mates still managed to graduate somehow… I am still wondering how on earth did that happened.

We need to define a definite language medium for our universities in future plans… BM or English. Either way will take a long journey, but we need to start somewhere. Bilingual could still work, but it’s rather ridiculous… I am an engineering graduate; I forget how to say ‘pengamiran’ in English, and I am not sure how to say pneumatic in BM. Shame on me, but the university teachings are partly blamed for this.

Basic Knowledge

Back then I had friends that had never touch a computer before entering university, but I guess the situation has improved a lot these days. However, lots of graduates are still lacking in some basic computering knowledge that is so essential these days.

English, Powerpoint, word processors, spreadsheets, email etiquette, typing etc. are basic requirements for most graduates. The universities are not responsible for teaching the undergraduates about these, but the undergraduates should be made aware and to take the initiative to improve themselves.

Badawi has no clue at all

Period.

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!!!

We are facing globalization these days – Malaysian business can’t survive by doing business with Malaysians only. We need to find business overseas, and Bahasa Malaysia is often useless in this case. English is the primary requirement for that, and considering the rising of Chinese market, Mandarin speakers are in high demand.

Not only Mandarin is needed when selling stuff to China; we often need to purchase things from China… and again having Mandarin speakers are a definite advantage to protect our interest.

Also, the government and some Malays need to cut their mindset that it’s Chinese companies that wanted Mandarin speakers… it’s not true at all. Chinese people are the most stingy businessmen, they won’t simply hire Mandarin speakers for racial sake, it’s all about MONEY and PROFIT!

Just yesterday I read from Star Classifies that DRB-HICOM is hiring Mandarin speakers; I can’t remember HICOM being a Chinese company. Correct me if I am wrong… isn’t HICOM half owned by Malaysia government?

My first formal job was for a Japanese manufacturer; they required me to speak Chinese because I would have to travel to China quite often to assist the branch there. My brother work for an international firm; Chinese speaking is not a requirement but is welcomed because they conduct businesses worldwide… in fact any extra lingual ability is an added advantage.

So, Mr. Abdul Rahman Bakar, Ministry of Human Resources and some dear Malaysians… think twice before trying to discriminate against Mandarin speakers; the requirement is there because they are needed, not because they are wanted. Before pointing fingers on people that can speak multiple languages, consider learning one or two instead.

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.

I personally know some people that worked in the construction field that have switched their jobs over the past 2 decades. Not that they didn’t want to work in construction field… they were indirectly forced out of their jobs because the companies preferred cheap foreign labour over locals.

Mind that the locals were not over-demanding with their pay; if not mistaken those days they were paid around RM50 per day, which should be quite reasonable with their work load. However, with the introduction of foreign workers, hiring locals seem to be a luxurious thing to do.

The government has never taken enough initiative to balance our work force. Instead of doing something to push the companies to use local workers (like setting a minimum wages etc.); the government decided to take the easy path and bring in loads of foreign workers to fill in the needs.

You can hardly hear from any construction firm hiring local labour these days; most of them go for foreign workers straight away. It’s not 100% true that no Malaysians want to work in those jobs… they are not offered any chances from the very beginning.

I understand that we still need foreign workers in some fields, but if the government can do more proper planning and look into the issue seriously… some of the jobs can be replaced by the real Malaysians, and our demand for foreign labour can be reduced significantly.

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?

It’s reported that about 900MW will be used by the smelter, out of the 2,400MW capacity Bakun is going to produce. So, Malaysia is spending billions of dollars, and bearing environmental damage to build the damn dam that should benefit the citizens for years… but is now mostly going to benefit an Australia company and a local conglomerate instead?

Not forget to mention is that the Chief Minister of Sarawak, Taib Mahmud’s family is a large shareholder in CMS… conflict of interest never applied in Malaysia ain’t so?

Besides, aluminium (and other metals) smelters are known for its hazardous environmental effect. Modern days smelters should be able to minimize the environmental impact; question is if the company is willing to spend loads of money into minimizing the damage.

Even if the company is willing to invest on environmental safety measures, there are still risks involved when handling the toxic waste. The easiest way to dispose the waste is by using landfill; and if any leakage happens during the handling, or after being buried… it could spell environmental disaster.

On the positive note… it is going to create working opportunities, some 4000+ directly or indirectly; and it is going to increase Malaysia’s GDP.

The main question is however… who are the real beneficial of the deal? The largest beneficiaries are probably Rio Tinto, CMS, Muhamad Taib and the company that is going to run Bakun dam.

Besides the 4000+ workers, I don’t see other common citizens benefiting much from it… the only parts we play is the taxpayers’ money that are spent on Bakun, and the environmental risk for Sarawakian.

It is easy to come out with a plan, but lots of questions remain uncertain… is it feasible to work on all those mega projects at the same time? Are Malaysians capable of funding the projects ourselves? How are we going to attract foreign investments? Who are going to benefit from the projects? What will happen to the projects if another economic crisis landed on Malaysia like in 1997?

Do we need these projects?

Perak government has spent millions if not billions to develop various industrial areas; most of those areas are close to being wasteland now. It is easy to draw planning and providing infrastructure, but what happen if we could not attract people to invest at those areas? And do we really need all these development?

As far as I know, MSC is not a huge success yet. There are still lots of empty slots in Cyberjaya and Putrajaya… and from the current rate it seems that their potential will not be fulfilled by 2020. So, what makes the government think that we are able to handle mega projects like IDR and NCER at the same time?

A good example is the Port Klang Free Zone (PKFZ); introduced in 2004 but is not moving anyway at the moment.

Who is going to benefit from the development?

People from north and south might be happy that they are not marginalized by national development projects, that they are getting some fair juice from the government.

One good thing that I see from NCER is that the agriculture sector is part of the plan. I am not sure if the small plantation owners and the small farmers are going to benefit though… I hope their businesses are not taken away by conglomerates instead.

The 1st group of people that will benefit from the plans are probably the land owners… follow by the foreign labours. The construction work will demand lots of workforce, but I doubt many Malaysians would want to work in the tough environment. Besides, the construction firms would probably hire foreign workers straight away without giving much chances to local labours.

I guess they will be another surge of foreign workers coming in… and it’s always easy to get them in and not easy the other way around; more social problems are coming ahead of it’s not handed properly.

The transparency of the government contracts will be in question again. Is it going to be open tender for government contracts or will it be going directly to the pre-selected companies? Even if there is open tender for the contracts, would it be fair and square?

For common citizens, the IDR and NCER are supposed to create lots of working opportunities, ONLY if it is as successful as planned. We’ll see how it goes.

Private Finance Initiatives (PFI)

Lots of the projects will be funded by Private Finance Initiatives (PFI); two-thirds of the NCER’s RM177 billions investment will be funded by the private sectors, that’s like ~RM109bil alone for NCER.

How many investors in Malaysia are capable to support all those development? In the end it’s very likely that government-linked companies like Petronas, UEM, Khazanah etc. that are going to dump out a large sum of money to fund the projects… should we still call these PFI if it happens?

Again, the Port Klang Free Zone is a good example of the failure for PFI funded projects… and seems like government might be forced to bail out the project, and the issue is turning scandalous.

Foreign Investors

I felt that the projects are losing cutting edge to attract massive foreign investments. Besides, I don’t think that IDR and NCER will attract new group of foreign investors… those investors that want to come to Malaysia will come regardless of the new development; they will find a place that is already developed if they want to.

I think that the introduction of IDR and NCER is pulling opportunities away from other Malaysia region… in fact I think that IDR and NCER might be crashing with each other, and in this case I don’t think competition is good for the nation at all.