Public policy making.. the world of Malaysian civil administration

1.       You know it’s bad when in reaction to tough economic times, government deliberates more and more of such Bantuan Rakyat 1Malaysia schemes, of course spending money it has out of additional debt taken on to fund budget deficits. Why this policy? Because the politics involved requires them to outdo a revitalized Opposition who is dangling more of the same – free university education for all, and if there isn’t enough unioversities we’ll build more of them. Where’s the monet coming from? Easy.. Petronas. Let’s disregard that there’s a big economic debate on the resource curse, ie countries blessed with natural resources tend to blow all the accrued benefits away until when the resource is depleted, the economy begins collapsing onto itself. By the way, just forget for the moment that Petronas’s dividends and taxes make up a huge chunk of public sector revenues anyway, and that is frittered away on misguided policies on already substantial subsidies. There’s a race to the bottom now, and frankly, neither side is of much use in this debate.

2.       Let’s also view the madness of society without the arguments being clouded with dumb acronyms. Baby-dumping, violent crimes, tough love from the police on “illegal” gatherings, poor education system etc. A Tahrir-square uprising is the rage now, but what if those who leads them are deluded and unfit to lead? There isn’t anyone around to lead a multi-cultural, diverse community such as ours. With hindsight, Mahathir’s ‘enlightened autocracy’, (without its attendant excesses of course) seems to be the best path for the country. None of this liberal, happy-go-lucky stuff.

3.       Policies are relevant according to the recipients. Unfortunate then that the recipients have always been seen as separate, using the segmentation of religion and race, and therefore policies could never be applied consistently. Biggest bugbear for me is that education according to racial lines is even allowed based on an obsolete “social contract”. Someone with balls needs to bring this issue out into the open, but of course then it becomes the subject that cannot be broached without significant electoral losses. So, we then continue to muddle along, not really finding the path to breaking free.