Beyond 1Malaysia – Stop Being Superficial
Khoo Kay Peng
After the 1Malaysia songs have been composed, sang and composers celebrated and rewarded, it is time for the Najib administration to get down to do some serious work. There is a limit to what a 'feel good' jingle and slogan can do for the society.
Overall, the BN government has yet to show us that it is willing to undertake some serious reforms. Hence, its action does not match the feel-good publicity so far.
On race relations, there is very little change to the overall national development framework and agenda. There is little information on how the government intends to review or revamp the outdated New Economic Policy.
The reluctance of some its leaders to dismantle a policy which was closely associated with abuse, nepotism, racism and corruption is clearly demonstrated when they argued that the NEP objectives are still relevant. Surely this is true but its implementation has left these objectives irrelevant.
Najib had announced some very careful and measured liberalisation measures to unfreeze some service sectors from the rigid race quota but the market did not respond enthusiastically. Evidently, the foreign direct investment continued to plunge and the net investment flow was negative.
Years of policy flip flop and bureaucratic red-tape have created a sense of distrust that this liberalisation policy will be even be carried out by the relevant agencies e.g. EPU, Immigration, FIC, SC and others.
What Prime Minister Najib ought to do is to tell us precisely what is next after the NEP? Is there a life after the NEP? Does the BN government have a post-NEP strategy?
Beside these archaic and outdated policies, the government is faced with another serious task of tackling the economic bottlenecks. It has identified a need to enhance the earning per capita and to reduce the dependency on cost centric economic activities. The government aims to double the GDP per capita by the year 2020. It wants to attract more foreign talents into the country.
