This Budget asks and answers some rather big questions. Begin by asking the man in the street, and he will say that he is happy with anyone’s budget because he is not going to benefit out of it directly or indirectly.
And so the finance minister who is also the Deputy Prime Minister is not dared politician to take on the criticism on his newly tabled Stimulus budget.
Why am I saying so? In the first place what’s wrong with the earlier Budget been tabled by the current Prime Minister? Why do we need to have 2 budgets within a very short spell of time? We have not achieved anything in the passed budget within the shortest possible time and they have not implemented a single project out of it.
The second big question to ask, therefore, is whether economics can hope to prevail over populism, or whether these new political budget considerations always triumph good economics?
To me it is not a positive mini Budget, because it’s not a having growth momentum.
It is a desperate election Budget by Najib, keeping in mind the both Bukit by-elections. The Deputy Prime Minister has not balanced the requirement of the economy keeping in mind the global economic crisis.
And so a government led by economists and economic reformers has ended up blowing to the current political considerations especially to the new waiting Prime Minister and creating an impression on implementing over a year programmes that they may not believe in, but which they have to introduce and then find reasons to support or give excuses to the citizens.
The non triumph stimulus budget also shows that the government are more keen in spending more funds in providing job trainings rather than creating more job opportunities in the country.
What is the purpose of spending in employment programmes on which is not guaranteed in return and with the current economic crisis this policy not realises now that the programme is not being implemented well.
What is the purpose of spending in employment programmes on which is not guaranteed in return and with the current economic crisis this policy not realises now that the programme is not being implemented well.
What is our current unemployment rate in Malaysia and how many of them been retrenched over 6 months? What is the retrenchment ratio like; between labourers, skilled workers and professional groups? Do they have the statistics? If yes, the government should more precise and confine in handling the retrenchment issue in this country.
The way the government does its accounting, are they really showing all the spending in the Budget to the public? I doubt.
That brings up another big question: The last big question is whether governments can be trusted to be responsible with money.
In short, the Stimulus budget presented by the Deputy Prime Minister had failed to address the real root of economic recession and it’s a temporary budget by the temporary federal government and a temporary finance minister. Instead of giving any relief to the common man, the budget aims to impress people with large sum and later will confuse them as whole.
