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Right from the beginning I felt something was not right about this SBPA. They way it was rushed, inadequate information given to government servants and short time period for signing made me to wonder whether the whole thing was a scam. Let’s go back and see what was announced in Budget 2012 http://www.treasury.gov.my/pdf/bajet/ub12.pdf in September 2011. At Page 24 and 25, a small announcement was made about SBPA. However what was made clear at that point of time was that there will be 7-13% pay adjustment with bigger annual increments of between RM80-320/year. The pay scale will be made as a single tier system and the maximum pay will be much more than SSM.

Then there was a total silence from JPA untill December 2011. Suddenly a circular was issued to all government servants to sign up for SBPA without proper explanation and without showing the pay scale. Stakeholders were never involved in the discussion! Most of the briefings given were inadequate and many civil servants were left in the dark. CUEPACS came into the picture and asked all civil servants not to sign the offer letter. Subsequently, the pay scale was released and woolah, a total mass was noted. The higher you are the better the pay adjustment. Civil servants with JUSA got 100% pay hike( about RM 6000-8000) and people at lower category like Staff nurses etc were getting only RM 70 pay rise. Attendants /Drivers were given RM 1-2 pay rise!! It was a total mess and I was not sure what actually happened as it was not in accordance to the Budget 2012 statement by the PM. I have 2 theories:

1) The JPA high-ranking officers decided to take all and push through the huge pay hike for themselves ( most PTD officers are usually U48 and above) when the election was around the corner. It is the best time to “black mail” the government . Basically, playing PM’s back. This statement in Malaysian Insider “However, the latest move raises questions about the internal processes within those in charge of the pay review and the Cabinet’s competency to digest beyond the headline figures presented to it when the entire wage scheme was being structured.The decision to scrap the SBPA is likely to also affect PSD director-general Datuk Seri Abu Bakar Abdullah’s chances of becoming the next Chief Secretary” http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/malaysia/article/government-scraps-civil-service-pay-revamp/ was interesting to note!

OR

2) The whole SBPA thing was a scam and an election gimmick? Announce huge pay hike, put on hold till March 2012 and call for an election in March 2012. So, the government servants got no choice but to vote the current government in order for SBPA to be implemented. Subsequently, after the election, PM comes up and say that SBPA is cancelled due to objections and only certain amount of pay rise will be given. Everyone knew that the election was initially planned for March but postponed due to the NFC scandal etc.

If indeed the SBPA was genuine, this will be one of the biggest flip-flop PM Najib has ever done since he became PM ! Anyway, I feel the current pay rise is reasonable and nondicriminatory.  So, with that, there will be some changes to my earlier post http://pagalavan.com/2012/03/01/for-future-doctors-government-doctors-salary/ . The HO salary will be almost the same but the U54 basic salary will be around RM 6000 and not RM 7110.

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The first part of this topic was written by me on 15/12/2011 http://pagalavan.com/2011/12/15/for-future-doctors-the-change-is-coming/. Since then I witnessed that 1Care issue is being discussed in various blogs, online news and even public forums are being conducted to discuss this issue. MOH seem to be keeping very quiet. Today, Malaysiakini wrote several articles concerning this issue.

However, I notice this announcement in Malaysian Pharmaceutical Society(MPS) website quite interesting http://www.mps.org.my/newsmaster.cfm?&menuid=37&action=view&retrieveid=3562.  Remember what I wrote on 6/10/2011 http://pagalavan.com/2011/10/06/i-told-you-so/ that there will come a time when doctors will not be allowed to dispense medicines ? Well, it is coming!

If you look at the MPS website announcement below, it is clearly stated that the government will outsource medication dispensing services under the 1 Care scheme to community pharmacist. A standard list of drugs will be provided and paid by the National Health Scheme under 1Care. So, I am not sure where the GPs dispensing rights will stand. Probably, they may ask GPs to hire pharmacist if they want to dispense medicine but then the statement “Pharmacy premises not to be shared by non pharmacy related services” is clearly stated.

Whatever said, the change is coming for better or worst! Just be prepared. It is not the rakyat alone who is going to be affected but also the doctors. And don’t think that the government doctors will not be affected!  “The current Govt Hospitals and Health Clinics will be given autonomy and will operate like private entities” is again clearly stated. This means that government hospitals and KKs will eventually be corporatised and will decide on their own how many doctors they will employ/pay! Probably, this is the reason why government is increasing the salary as a prelude to corporatosation. All doctors will eventually work on contract basis under corporate companies.

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 Whenever the salary scheme changes, issues like this will appear. The letter below appeared in the Sun yesterday http://www.thesundaily.my/news/257153. It will always benefit the juniors and the seniors will always lose out and forced to leave. When SSM was introduced in 2003, I was one of the casualty. I was gazetted 2 weeks after SSM was introduced and just because of that I did not get my promotion to U48. People who were gazetted just 2 weeks before me were given promotion. It took me another 4 years after much discussion between SCHOMOS, MOH and JPA for me to get my U48 promotion. By this time, even my juniors who were just gazetted in 2006 were also given U48!! So, in terms of salary, I was sitting at the same salary as my juniors of 4 years. That was one of the reason I quit civil service and joint Monash University then. 

As I had written before http://pagalavan.com/politics/government-doctors-promotion/, when the time based promotion was introduced in 2010, the same situation happened. The senior consultants were given U54 at the same time with junior specialist. Basically a consultant who has been in service for almost 15 years was sitting at the same salary as a junior specialist of 9 years of service. A consultant and his subspeciality trainee was at the same salary. Again, this chased away a lot of senior specialist from civil service.

Now, with the introduction of the new salary scheme for civil servants (SBPA), the same issue is happening again. The seniors who were in U54 will be at the same salary with junior specialist of U54. Everyone will be getting the same salary except for those who are in JUSA scale. There is a huge bottleneck at U54 that not many are going to be promoted to JUSA in near future. IT is really demoralising to be in their situation and I felt the same when I was stuck at U41 grade for almost 4 years after gazettement.

These are the many frustration that you will face in civil service. It only chases away all the good hardworking senior consultants, leaving behind the “world travellers” and apple polishers. Unfortunately, the private sector is also getting saturated with lower incomes. So, if you can’t beat them, join them lah…………

Senior medical specialist in distress

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THis is an interesting write-up from Asia Sentinel. Day by day, it looks like our current PM is becoming like our previous PM. Too much rhetoric but nothing much has moved. Too much flip-flops and changing policies. Whatever so-called economic policy transformation that he had promised before seem to be reversing due to pressures within UMNO and certain Malay right groups!! PM and DPM saying 2 opposite things ? Did you realise that? And today’s news: 43% of MRT work bills will be given to Bumi contractors! I can assure you many UMNOputras will be queuing up in front of his office to get this projects! Some how, I feel the MRT project is going to be riddled with problems and delays. Let’s see whether what I say will come true in 5-10 years time! And why the hell they need to demolish all the heritage buildings in China town/Petaling Street for underground tunneling? Is it a way to take over and sell off the prime land from the people who has been staying and working there for centuries?

Enjoy the article below:

There are strong institutional reasons for the lagging performance against its regional neighbors

In the 70 years since World War II ended, East Asian economies, including Malaysia, appear to have largely got performance right. Malaysia was also one of 13 countries identified by the Commission on Growth and Development in its 2008 Growth Report to have recorded average growth of more than 7 percent per year for 25 years or more. Malaysia achieved this spectacular performance from 1967 to 1997.

However, since the Asian Financial Crisis of 1997 and1998, Malaysia’s economic performance when compared to previous decades has been lackluster and most macroeconomic indicators are trending downwards. This was confirmed by Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak himself in the publication on March 30, 2010 of the New Economic Model – Part 1. This was a very brave move but a necessary one by the premier as he acknowledged publicly the failures of Malaysia’s current economic model in order to demonstrate urgency for reforms.

The New Economic Model identifies domestic factors such as weak investor confidence, capability constraints (weak human capital, entrepreneurial base and innovative capacity) , productivity ceilings and institutional degradation and external factors such as a sluggish global economy caused by the global financial crisis of 2008-2009 and the rise of neighbors in the region in contributing to the declining growth trajectory.

If we were to revisit the determinants of growth and agree that proper institutions form the overall structure that determines long-term sustainable growth, then the logical response is to reform Malaysia’s institutional set-up, as it must be the deepest determinant of what is hindering economic growth.

This view is further strengthened as Malaysia’s other deep determinants, geography and trade, are favorable. The country has abundant natural resources, is shielded from natural hazards and is well-located strategically both geopolitically and economically. Malaysia has also benefitted tremendously from being an open economy, especially in the merchandise sector.

The New Economic Model also reports that regional challenges from China, India and Vietnam, etc. are a cause for Malaysia’s declining economic performance. What has changed about these countries? They have all undertaken institutional reforms: China since 1978, India since 1992 and Vietnam since 1986. They are reaping the benefits while Malaysia has stalled in its institutional reforms since the 1990s, regressed in some ways and is suffering from the consequences.

The above points stress the importance of institutional reforms in Malaysia, something that Najib has ironically neglected in his signature policies – 1Malaysia, Government Transformation Programme and Economic Transformation Programme.

According to the Growth Commission report, “…fast sustained growth is not a miracle; it is attainable for developing countries with the ‘right mix of ingredients.’ Countries need leaders who are committed to achieving growth and who can take advantage of opportunities from the global economy. They also need to know about the levels of incentives and public investments that are necessary for private investment to take off and ensure the long-term diversification of the economy and its integration in the global economy…”

Michael Spence, the Chairman of the Growth Commission, elaborated on his extensive experience working with developing countries on growth issues in his latest book by emphasizing two important characteristics for developing countries to ensure long term sustainable growth – the role of political leadership and democratic norms. He suggests four characteristics for governments that are necessary requirements to underpin long term growth:

1. The government takes economic performance and growth seriously.
2. The governing group has values that cause it to try to act in the interest of the vast majority of the people (as opposed to themselves or some subgroup, however defined)
3. The government is competent and effective and selects a viable sustained-growth strategy that includes openness to the global economy, high levels of investment, and a strong future orientation.
4. Economic freedom is present and is supported by the legal system and regulatory policy

Manifestations of Malay/Muslim Supremacy

Malaysia is classified as a non-democratic state by all international indexes measuring quality of democracy. This is also affirmed in academic circles. During the boom years, Malaysians accepted this tradeoff – restricted freedom for economic growth. Since 1997/98, this has changed as expected. The government has not delivered on growth, therefore the natural demand for reforms and by extension freedom.

There is consensus that Malaysia needs extensive economic, political and social reforms. This is all the more evident IF we agree that institutions are key to long term growth. Also, IF we agree with Spence, these reforms must come from a government with the four characteristics identified above.

Astute observers of Malaysia know the reasons why the present administration and the ones before were unable to make fundamental reforms. This has much to do with the ideology of Malay/Muslim Supremacy as defined by the United Malays National Organization (UMNO) and accepted by large swaths of Malaysians, Muslims and non-Muslims alike.

From the literature we can infer that the ideology of Malay/Muslim supremacy has provided the perverse incentives that have manifested themselves in many ways. The more critical ones are:

• Institutional degradation: The deterioration in the quality of Malaysia’s institutions, particularly during former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad’s years, such as the lack of independence between the branches of government; the politicization of the civil service, producing a culture of risk aversion and a lack of creativity; and the expansion of the non-transparent Government Linked Corporations (GLCs):
• Crony capitalism: Affirmative action in the name of Malays has become a smokescreen for crony capitalism. Affirmative action is the instrument for rampant elite-based (from all races, not only Malays) corruption. High levels of income inequality in Malaysia in general but more so within the Malay community prove this.
• Race based affirmative action: Race-based affirmative action in itself is recognized as one of the important reasons for Malaysia’s declining economic performance. Malaysia’s focus on the ex-post equalization of outcomes across ethnicities rather than ensuring effective ex-ante equalization of access to opportunities has had important direct efficiency implications, affecting growth by distorting incentives and thereby the competitive process.
• Excessive centralization: An interesting institutional feature is the lack of decentralization in the country, which is nominally a Federation and the top-down approach in public policymaking. This is a key disconnect in the reform rhetoric in the ETP and GTP. To strengthen public service delivery, local communities need to be empowered. Fiscal relationships between federal-state-local also demonstrates institutional failure.
• Feedback mechanisms: Related to Malaysia’s top-down approaches is an almost complete disregard for monitoring and evaluation. As a result there is little feedback from outcomes into policy design. The obsession with centralizing policy-making is also evident in lack of information sharing both within government and with the public.

The need to remove UMNO to create a new “people based ideology”

In relation to competency, the quality of the human capital base in Malaysia is suspect. This is due to the quality of education from preschool through tertiary and on-the-job training. It is linked with ethnicity issues and is exacerbated by the outflow of high-skill individuals and affected by the inflow of low-skill labor.

There are not only problems on the supply side of the market for skills, but also on the demand side, where firms may not be competitive enough to offer higher wages. The market for skills itself is also problematic in that the price mechanism does not work adequately and this is where wage-setting issues play a role.

A bigger and more important challenge than competency is the question of internal competition. This is quite distinct from external competitiveness, on which front Malaysia has scored relatively well in the merchandise sector given its stage of development and the nature of its manufacturing processes which are still dominated by competitiveness identified by low cost rather than high value.

Internal competition refers to the allocation of certain factors including labor, capital, land and product markets. Internal competition works well when there is good governance, openness and transparency. It relates to the need for deregulation, liberalization and competition policies especially in key areas such as government procurement and the activities of GLCs in the domestic economy.

All of these are also needed to produce effective competition for good ideas and good policies as well as competition in the political arena. This of course challenges the basic idea of meritocracy and affirmative action in Malaysia.

To reform these will ostensibly mean changing Malaysia’s embedded incentives and institutions. This definitely means undoing the manifestations of Malay/Muslim supremacy.

Can UMNO implement these reforms?

My hypothesis is that the present leadership in Malaysia within the Barisan Nasional framework is incapable of institutionalizing reforms as the present leadership does not meet the criteria set out by Spence for a simple reason – its ideology. This ideology that overrides and at the same time influences all other norms, rules, conventions, habits and values is the ideology of Malay/Muslim Supremacy.

As the Prime Minister of Malaysia always comes from UMNO it will be impossible for him or her to undo the cornerstone ideology of his/her political party and its adherents in the Barisan Nasional, which includes Malays and non-Malays.

The logic above is discussed extensively in the political science literature. To summarize, the Malay/Muslim ideology provides psychological and material benefits to its adherents. This makes it a potent force for groups that rely on this ideology. However, since it is deeply embedded, it is also extremely difficult to counter when needed. Malaysia’s present institutional equilibrium is a reflection of the strength of the adherents of Malay/Muslim supremacy, known by its Malay-language slogan Ketuanan Melayu.

There are many examples to illustrate Malay/Muslim supremacy but the one that is cited most often as holding back Malaysia’s economic reforms is affirmative action, the most comprehensive in the world. It has by inference been touted as the one of the key reasons for Malaysia’s declining economic performance although causality has not been explicitly demonstrated.

Supporters of affirmative action argue that Article 153 of the Federal Constitution provides the Bumiputeras the right to this extensive affirmative action. However this is factually incorrect.

Article 153 of the Malaysian Federal Constitution states that:

153. (1) It shall be the responsibility of the Yang di-Pertuan Agong to safeguard the special position of the Malays and natives of any of the States of Sabah and Sarawak and the legitimate interests of other communities in accordance with the provisions of this Article.

(2) Notwithstanding anything in this Constitution, but subject to the provisions of Article 40 and of this Article, the Yang di-Pertuan Agong shall exercise his functions under this Constitutions and federal law in such manner as may be necessary to safeguard the special position of the Malays and natives of any of the States of Sabah and Sarawak and to ensure the reservation for Malays and natives of any of the States of Sabah and Sarawak of such proportion as he may deem reasonable of positions in the public service (other than the public service of a State) and of scholarships, exhibitions and other similar educational or training privileges or special facilities given or accorded by the Federal Government and, when any permit or license for the operation of any trade or business is required by federal law, then, subject to the provisions of that law and this Article, of such permits and licenses.

In more simple words, the Federal Constitution limits affirmative action to placement in the civil service at the Federal level, scholarships and permits and licences for Bumiputras and only if necessary and in a reasonable manner by the Prime Minister who advises the Yang diPertuan Agung.

Does the Prime Minister have the power to revoke or reform affirmative action policies?

Yes, he does. Malaysia is a constitutional monarchy where the monarch reigns but do not rule. Article 153 is subject to Article 40 and Article 40 states that the Yang diPertuan Agung must act on the advice of the Cabinet.

40. (1) In the exercise of his functions under this Constitution or federal law the Yang di-Pertuan Agong shall act in accordance with the advice of the Cabinet or of a Minister acting under the general authority of the Cabinet, except as otherwise provided by this Constitution; but shall be entitled, at his request, to any information concerning the government of the Federation which is available to the Cabinet.

The decision to continue or reform affirmative action policies and the attendant institutions in Malaysia lies solely at the prerogative of the Prime Minister along with his colleagues in Cabinet as stated in Article 40.

With power centralized in the Executive (Cabinet), and with the Prime Minister already having six Ministers of 31 from the Prime Minister’s Department in the Cabinet, and with the Prime Minister himself holding two portfolios (Prime Minister and Finance Minister I), and legitimised by the Constitution (Article 40), the Prime Minister should on all counts, be able to implement these reforms without much difficulty.

Yet he has been unable to do so for the simple reason that the Federal Constitution may be the law of the land but it is clearly not the supreme power/ideology in Malaysia. The supreme power/ideology is the primacy of Malays/Muslims as defined by UMNO. Hence the Prime Minister may have de jure power to reform, but he does not have de facto power. This power resides among the Malays and non-Malays who support Malay/Muslim supremacy and the current institutional set-up.

Until and unless this supreme ideology of Malay/Muslim supremacy is removed, Malaysian politicians will be constrained in making the necessary institutional reforms to move Malaysia towards long term sustainable growth.

(Greg Lopez is a PhD candidate at the Crawford School of Economics and Government, Australian National University. A longer scholarly version of this appeared on The New Mandala.)

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Again another excellent article from Mariam Mokhtar. I did not want to comment much on what was happening lately regarding the sex video issues and the latest Utusan fiasco because only fools will listen to all these nonsense when there are so many other important issues that are going on.  It is the government’s way of trying to divert the attention of the people. While people are diverted with these issues, the oil price and sugar price has gone up! People who still believe in what the “toilet paper” aka Utusan Merapu writes must be  a complete idiot. How can 9% of Christians in this country change the constitution to make Christian as an official religion? Only retards will believe in this! And where is the source? a blog postings WTH!! However, I am surprised that even so-called educated professionals can believe is these type of non-sense and that makes me wonder how these people were successfully brain washed by BTN aka UMNO! God is watching and punishment will come one day! God bless……………

The Ugly Muslim

The Muslim NGO Pembela is wrong to blame Christianity for the alleged decline of Islam in Malaysia because the worst enemies of Islam, in Malaysia, are from within the ranks of the Muslims.Islam may be a beautiful religion, but some of the Muslims in Umno, Utusan Malaysia, and the extremist groups like Perkasa and Pembela are ugly. Islam may preach love and tolerance, but Muslims in Umno, Utusan, Perkasa and Pembela are bigots who are consumed with hate.Perhaps the so-called Muslims in these organisations, who profess to be true Muslims, are Muslim in name only. They lust after power and are aware that without the Malay vote, the activities of their party, their newspaper, their institution or their way of life (the Ketuanan Melayu lording it over other communities) will be curtailed or cease to exist altogether.

Umno has been stung by the successes of the Opposition in Sarawak. They then suffered further humiliation with PAS rejecting their overtures. So, their only recourse to remain in power, come the general election, has been to provoke and manipulate Malay/Muslim minds, especially the rural Malays.

Umno has capitalised on the power of distraction. The trick is to divert Malaysians from BN’s failure to stabilise the economy, to reinvigorate the private sector and investment, and to manage the public finances.

Instill fear in Malays, blame the others

They do this by instilling fear in the Malays and by shifting the blame onto others. This time, the hapless recipient of Umno’s degeneracy, are the Christians of Malaysia. On previous occasions, it has been the ‘ungrateful’ Chinese.

Last Saturday, Utusan Malaysia defiantly provoked Malaysians with a front-page headline claiming the DAP was in league with a group of Christian pastors to instal Christianity as the country’s official religion. The insinuation was that the act would pave the way for a Christian prime minister.

Had this been a non-BN sanctioned newspaper, the editors would have been sacked and jailed, their licence to print revoked and the paper shut down. As Utusan is owned by Umno, it was business as usual at this Malay daily.

Time and time again, Utusan has got away with seditious publications when others, like Raja Petra Kamaruddin, face arrest for publishing revealing documents. It is the same treatment meted to Clare Rewcastle-Brown, the non-Muslim founder of the online website, Sarawak Report (SR).

SR prints original documents alleging Sarawak Chief Minister Taib Mahmud’s corruption and illegally obtained wealth. Clare is trying to make Malaysians aware of Taib’s corruption, but very few of the Muslims in Umno have taken heed.

It is without doubt that weak leadership of the country has given rise to this dangerous state of affairs.

Najib’s pledge may prove to be just hot air

Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak finally broke his silence on the Utusan article; however, his announcement that the government would ‘investigate the matter before it was blown out of proportion’ and lead to ‘serious polarisation in society’, may prove to be just more hot air.

Perhaps he should ask himself how many times Utusan has been guilty of sedition and escaped censure? Most will say far too often.

How soon, and how severely, will he clamp down on the extremist Muslim elements in Malaysia, who have fanned anger and suspicion in the community?

Perkasa has already lodged a series of police reports in every state, saying that the ‘Christian state issue’ was a threat to national security.

Pembela finds fault with the Christians, by claiming that the Christians were on a mission to convert Muslims in the country, starting with “confusing” Muslims by the use of Islamic terms, presumably like the word ‘Allah’.

Those who have lived in the 50s, 60s, 70s and 80s will recall that Christmas was a time when all the races and religions would mix and mingle in open houses. There was no issue with the food or drink, no issue with the religious symbols like crosses or that there was a Christmas tree and hymns and carols were sung. Those times are but a distant memory.

If it is any consolation, all these machinations by the media are an indication that the general election is near. There is nothing like a dose of fear to manipulate people to do the wrong thing.

Perhaps the best way to reason the perceived threat to Islam, in Malaysia, is in the Muslim populace. If Islam here is under siege, it is because the enemy is the ‘Ugly Muslim’.

They are the ones who crave power. They are the ones who maintain that the term ‘Allah’ cannot be used by non-Muslims in Peninsular Malaysia, but is permissible in Borneo. They are the ones who confiscated the Bible in the Malay language and held the Christians to ransom.

So, why do they keep silent on the serious issues?

If we dig deeper, who are the ones who force children to convert to Islam, if one of the parents becomes a Muslim? How about body snatching or grave robbing? What about the child in Sarawak who was whipped for eating food that had been prepared for his school break?

What about the women who are treated like cattle? Or those who are abandoned by their husbands who yearn for a younger model? What about the Muslims who are flogged for drinking beer when this should be a personal choice?

What about the moral policing which has caused several deaths? What about the endemic corruption or the public screening of sex videos? What about child marriages?

Why do the Muslims keep silent on these serious issues but harp on about a fictitious demand by the Christians for Christianity to be the official state religion?

The biggest threats to Malaysia and Islam in Malaysia are the thieving, power-grabbing Muslims in political parties, the media and the NGOs, who know the truth but prefer to manipulate it for their own selfish means. They have failed their fellow Malaysian and others of their religion. That is the profile of the Ugly Muslim.
 

MARIAM MOKHTAR is a non-conformist traditionalist from Perak, a bucket chemist and an armchair eco-warrior. In ‘real-speak’, this translates into that she comes from Ipoh, values change but respects culture, is a petroleum chemist and also an environmental pollution-control scientist

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By Lee Wei Lian

April 28, 2011

KUALA LUMPUR, April 28 — World Bank senior economist Philip Schellekens painted a gloomy picture of the Malaysian brain drain situation today saying that it not only grew rapidly but is likely to intensify, further eroding the country’s already narrow skills base.

Schellekens said that the number of skilled Malaysians living abroad has tripled in the last two decades with two out of every 10 Malaysians with tertiary education opting to leave for either OECD (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development) countries or Singapore.

“Brain drain from Malaysia is likely to intensify in the absence of mitigating actions,” he said at the launch of the World Bank report titled “Malaysia Economic Monitor: Brain Drain”.

The report defined brain drain as the outflow of those with tertiary-level education.

The economist said Malaysian migration was increasingly becoming a skills migration with one-third of the one million-strong Malaysian diaspora now consisting of the tertiary educated.

“Expect the trend to continue,” he said.

He added that the outflow of talent was not being replaced with inflows, thus damaging the quality of Malaysia’s “narrow” skills base, noting that 60 per cent of immigration into Malaysia had only primary education or less, even as the number of skilled expatriates declined by 25 per cent since 2004.

The report also noted that there was a geographic and ethnic component to the brain drain, with about 88 per cent of the Malaysian diaspora in Singapore being of ethnic Chinese origin.

“The numbers for US and Australia are similar,” said Schellekens.

Report figures also show that 54 per cent of the Malaysian brain drain went to Singapore while 15 per cent went to Australia, 10 per cent to the US and 5 per cent to the UK.

The top three drivers for brain drain identified by the report were career prospects, compensation and social justice.

“(Lack of) Meritocracy and unequal access to scholarships are significant push factors and a deterrent to coming back,” said Schellekens. “Non-Bumiputeras are over-represented in the brain drain.”

He suggested that Malaysia implement important structural reforms in tandem with introducing targeted measures such as income tax incentives to reverse the brain drain.

“Once the highway is built, you must compete for traffic,” he said. “One suggestion is to hold a competition among members of the diaspora to get ideas on what can be done to attract them home.”

He added that while this report estimated the Malaysian diaspora at one million compared with about 1.4 million in a previous World Bank report, it was due to the lack of Singapore government information on the breakdown of its non-resident population.

“This is a conservative estimate and the diaspora could well be larger,” he said.

Social injustice main cause of country’s brain drain, says World Bank

By Asrul Hadi Abdullah Sani

April 28, 2011

KUALA LUMPUR, April 28 — Social injustice is one of the top three reasons behind the country’s brain drain, the World Bank said today, adding that Malaysians are only willing to return if the government shifts from race-based to needs-based affirmative action policies.

The World Bank conducted an online survey in February of 200 Malaysians living abroad in conjunction with the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

In its fourth issue of the Malaysia Economic Monitor, the report stated that 60 per cent of the respondents found that social injustice as their main concern to migrate or return-migrate, citing unequal access to scholarships and higher education especially among the younger generation within the non-Bumiputera community.

Of those surveyed, 66 per cent found that lack of career prospects was a major factor and 54 per cent agreed that unattractive salaries as underlying factors in the Malaysian diaspora.

The report also showed that a large number of the diaspora migrated to Singapore, resulting in Malaysian-born individuals contributing to a quarter of the island nation’s population in 2010.

According to a census conducted in Singapore last year, there are currently 385,979 Malaysians-born residents comprising 47 per cent of all skilled foreign labour in the country.

The number of ethnic Chinese among Malaysian migrants in Singapore has also jumped from 85 per cent in 2000 to 88 per cent in 2010.

The World Bank also said that a large number of Malaysians obtained their tertiary education overseas, pointing out that those emigrating are getting younger as more of those below 23 are leaving the country.

The report concluded that the “Malaysian diaspora is large and expanding, as well as geographically concentrated and ethnically skewed.”

In a Bloomberg news service report earlier today, World Bank senior economist Philip Schellekens was quoted as saying that foreign investment could be five times the current levels if the country had Singapore’s talent base.

“Migration is very much an ethnic phenomenon in Malaysia, mostly Chinese but also Indian,” Schellekens told Bloomberg in Kuala Lumpur on Tuesday ahead of the report’s release today.

Governance issues and lack of meritocracy are “fundamental constraints” to Malaysia’s expansion because “competition is what drives innovation,” he said.

Malaysia’s growth fell to an average 4.6 per cent a year in the past decade, from 7.2 per cent the previous period.

Singapore, which quit Malaysia in 1965, expanded 5.7 per cent in the past decade and has attracted more than half of its neighbour’s overseas citizens, according to the World Bank.

Malaysia has in recent years unveiled plans to improve skills and attract higher value-added industries.

Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak has pledged to roll back the country’s NEP-style policies but he also told the Umno assembly last year that the government’s social contract of providing benefits to Bumiputeras cannot be repealed.

According to the Bloomberg report, Najib has eased some rules to woo funds, including scrapping a requirement that foreign companies investing in Malaysia and locally-listed businesses set aside 30 per cent of their Malaysian equity for indigenous investors.

Last year, he unveiled an economic transformation programme under which the government identified US$444 billion (RM1.3 trillion) of projects from mass rail transit to nuclear power that it would promote in the current decade.

 

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Mariam Mokhtar
Mar 21, 11
11:36am

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Another interesting piece from Mariam Mokhtar!

 

Will the real Malay please stand up?

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Mariam Mokhtar
Mar 14, 11

Who can blame the poor modern Malay for being confused about his identity when someone of Indian extraction claims to fight for their rights and a Chinese convert calls the non-Malays immigrants?

Former prime minister Mahathir Mohamad said recently that Arabs, Indians and Indonesians who came to Malaya became constitutional Malays, because they adopted the Malay language, their customs and traditions, and they were Muslims.

Mahathir (left in picture) also said that Malays still required affirmative action policies as their businesses were still weak and failing. He disagreed with calls from various quarters for the government to stop helping Malays as these policies had not met their goals.

Last year, Mahathir warned the Malays that they would “lose their power” if Pakatan were to assume control of the country because Pakatan leaders were “a bunch of self-serving and racist politicians”.

Mahathir took pot shots at Perak ex-mentri besar, PAS’s Mohamad Nizar Jamaluddin, whom he said “had followed DAP’s orders until he fell”. Despite Nizar’s Malay name and Muslim faith, Mahathir accused Nizar of being a DAP tool and that the Perak government under Pakatan was a “Chinese government”.

He also spoke ill of opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim and accused him of ignoring the rakyat but was using the party to further his own ambition of becoming prime minister.

Then of course, we have the Utusan Malaysia columnist Dr Ridhuan Tee Abdullah (right) who is less proud of his Chinese identity and frequently uses his assimilation into the Malay culture, his embrace of Islam and his proficiency with the Malay language to attack the non-Malay communities.

Tee had said that non-Malay-speaking Malaysians and the “ultra kiasu” will be the stumbling block to the government’s transformation programmes.

So who is the ordinary Malay?

By the law of the land, every Malay is born a Muslim. When Article 11 of the constitution states that every person has the right to profess and practice his own religion, this excludes the Muslims.

Last week, Shiites in the country, who have been termed a “deviant” sect, were banned from promoting their faith to other Muslims but were free to practise it themselves.

In the last three decades, more Malay women have been donning the tudung because of peer pressure. Others complained that if they did not, their chances of promotion, especially in the civil service, were limited.

In the last decade or so, more Malay children have been segregated according to sex, and prevented from playing together. Several girls, including toddlers, are also made to don the tudung and dress conservatively. Their dress precludes the girls from participating in more rigorous playground activities and when indulging in water sports, little girls have to wear complete head to toe outfits.

A heirarchy exists in the city

What must the rural Malay think when he sees his urban cousins frequent the clubs like Zouk or Loft? Little does the rural Malay know that a hierarchy exists in the city.

The children of politicians and influential Malays go to international schools unlike their rural cousins in the Felda settlements who just drop out from school.

In the cities, Malay kids are subject to western influence. Cheerleaders are common at school sports. School proms are held at five-star hotels, for end-of-year parties. Girls go around in slinky creations that would make their parents blush.

Alcohol is freely consumed and they think nothing of being with the opposite sex. Those who do drugs only consume “designer drugs”, whereas in the Felda settlements, the kids huff glue and chase the dragon. Incest in the rural communities is a big problem because kids (and adults), have no other sexual outlet.

For the Malay elite, conditions at home are the same as any luxury hotel. They have television projectors and several maids unlike most households which are only allowed one maid, unless there are exceptional circumstances, like a sick relative in the house, in which case they might be allowed two maids.

The privileged Malay children are chauffeur driven, enjoy at least three holidays a year in Europe or the Americas and have credit cards and an allowance that would make most people with a job envious.

The next tier of urban Malay enjoys more freedom than his rural counterpart but not as much as the Umnoputra or crony offspring. He can only enjoy a drink in the privacy of his own home to avoid the debacle that people like Kartika and her friends had to endure.

If he has a girlfriend, he can only see her in public places and even then, he may not touch her for fear of the moral police who are ready to pounce on him. Unlike his more privileged Umnoputra cousin who seems to evade capture by the moral police, he has to be very vigilant as he seems to be an easy target.

Last week, Isa Samad, the chairman of Felda, accused the opposition of raising issues to erode the confidence of settlers in the government. Are they really?

Racist rhetoric and religious intolerance

Mahathir, Isa, and Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak and his cabinet have been confusing the Malays with their racist rhetoric and their religious intolerance for so long that the Malays are incapable of thought and analysis.

The Malay mind and his behaviour are closely scrutinised. He has no leeway so that when faced with several restrictions, he finds it easier to let the government do his thinking for him.

That is why he needs those crutches that the government tells him he requires to get on in life.

The way the Malay raises his children has affected the Malay youth and his perception of life in Malaysia.

He is told he deserves all sorts of perks and privileges. He forgets about compassion and equality. He becomes arrogant when Umno praises him for being part of the ketuanan Melayu breed. Ketuanan Melayu has made Malays lose their values and their self-respect.

Is it any wonder that Malays who venture outside of the country tend to remain overseas, as both physical and mental freedom is like an elixir of life?

Sadly by allowing Umno to think on his behalf, the Malay does not liberate his mind. He becomes ignorant and insecure. He fails to understand many things in the real world and his lack of knowledge is perhaps his greatest failing.

The Malay of today is a confused human being.

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MARIAM MOKHTAR is a non-conformist traditionalist from Perak, a bucket chemist and an armchair eco-warrior. In ‘real-speak’, this translates into that she comes from Ipoh, values change but respects culture, is a petroleum chemist and also an environmental pollution-control scientist.

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Mariam Mokhtar
Feb 21, 11
1:42p

 

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