Posts Tagged ‘Putrajaya’

Are We Going to Bankrupt?

Now, who is right who is wrong? Are they knowing what they are talking about?

First of all, I am not economist. I do not know whether we are going to bankrupt in 9 years time as explained by Idris Jala or we are still in good shape and no risk of bankruptcy as mentioned by Najib Razak. The concern is, why can it be so simply when they announce something?

Who should we trust now?

Let see what had happened.

It was on 27 May, Bernama reported that ‘Our deficit rose to a record high of RM74 billion last year, and the nation could go bankrupt by 2019 with debts totalling RM1.158 trillion.’  That was announced by Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, Datuk Seri Idris Jala.

Then what had happen? Together in the same speech, Idris had said that we need to rationalize our subsidy in order to reduce deficit and to avoid the said bankrupt situation.

And yesterday, 8 June, Bernama again reported that ‘Malaysia will not go bankrupt like Iceland and Greece following the nation’s success in maintaining its debts level under control and prudent measures taken to reduce debt rate, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak told the Dewan Rakyat."’

What a magic. We turn the economy around in less than 2 weeks time.

So what is our current financial standing then?

From a layman understanding, I suspect that:

1. At first, the ‘bankruptcy’ talk was a try to convince the people that we have to accept the fact that government need to reduce subsidy for us.

2. Unexpectedly too much objection to the statement above especially voices said why cut subsidy for people instead of reduce wastage in non productive projects and corruption?

3. People start to blame BN poor administration that has cause the problem and eventually putting people into suffer.

3. It must be too much of pressured felt by Najib and due to worry of losing votes, he have to deny the statement by coming out some other statements.

Conclusion: they do not know where we are now and do not know how to continue administer the economy effectively. All we see our government currently doing is ‘test water’ and react to the situation, not proactively control it.

PS: If we are so in deep shxt, why the hess we plan to spend money on building a new Parliament building, now (Bernama, June 9)? Is that really necessary? Weren’t we just spent quite a big buck to renovate the existing premise some years ago?

1 Million Laptops for ‘POOR’ Student?? Sure or Not??

Are they so sure that they want to spend the $$ to distribute the laptop to students? Well, I am not against the idea of helping student to own computer, and ultimately expose them to the skills of IT. But is there better way? For example, give a interest free loan instead of giving free?

After giving the computer, are they going to subsidize the Internet access as well? Basically without Internet nowadays, a computer is near to ‘useless’.

So who is going to be the supplier of the laptops? A branded company or local made ‘Cap Ayam’? Pricing wise is it reasonable? Nowadays we can get a netbook with price around RM 1,500. But remember, with a netbook, we need to acknowledge that we can’t do much more than browsing internet, doing word processing and social networking. Is that considered practical for students? For them, they might be keen to expose to more advance technology for example playing 3D games, do some graphic design, play with programming etc. We can’t really use a netbook to achieve that.

The most to worry is, it’s said to have 1 million student gonna benefit. However, who is to ensure that it’s correctly justified? What if they report as 1 million but the underlying fact is only 100k people get the laptops?

Too many question to be asked. Please don’t simply spend our $$. By the way aren’t we just been told that we need to tighten our budget deficit or else we might have to default our sovereign debts in few years time?

Some update on top of the original posting above. Still remember we had the project to provide projector, laptop to schools for teacher to use as part of high tech teaching? What I have known so far is, a lot of the projector are left unused, or at most used for watching videos during school time. Many teachers don’t know how to use computer aid teaching material to teach correctly. The laptops are out of date now and not suitable anymore. However, after spending all the money, what benefit have gain? I do not know. Maybe those in education field could share more.

It Has Been Too Wrong

As we all know he has been ‘suspected’ responsible in a lot of cases but nobody can actually touch him because the whole national law enforcement machinery is HIS. Example of the cases like:

1. Poor Mongolian lady, murdered miserably.

2. Expensive submarine with problem to dive bought during his tenancy as Minister of Defense.

3. Newly heard, he had just signed a multi-billion nuclear plant deal with France, not sure for what justification we need to pursue nuclear power in near future.

4. Engaging APCO with extremely high consultation fee, gone into mystery 2 ringgit company account.

Whether or not, that takes time to find out the truth. But with the 2 by-election just happen, we have enough reason why he is not fit as our Prime Minister anymore. Simply because, the serious violation of basic principle of democracy and ignorance of people’s right. Misuse the whole people’s money for his own FUN.

You may have heard about he conditionally offered Ulu Selangor people the allocation for RASA primary school the amount of 3 million? That’s openly buying votes. Ok, let say it’s for people’s benefit, why not earlier; why not later but during the election? And with a condition that ‘if BN win the election’? Together with the Ulu Selangor by-election, hundreds of millions allocation suddenly approved for projects. Were the projects been adequately justified and prioritized or simply for the sake of wining the election?

Another one just happen in Sibu. You can see the video below and digest what he said. Decide base on your own judgment.

He Said He is Surprised?

Why he suddenly surprised for the number of people don’t have personal identity? We have been knowing this for years.

I read the news on The Star, and I feel that’s really doesn’t make any sense for such report to even appear.

If this is a problem that he newly make known, some more he felt surprise about it, that’s really wrong for him to be in the position of Home Minister. Why I say so?

Isn’t that the problem of Sarawakian native having not personal identification a long time issue? Weren’t there many NGO’s have been submitting papers to raise attention to the issues from government and people as a whole?

Example is this:

* The original report is credit of Malaysian Election Observation Network (MEO-Net). Please contact the person in charge if you are interested to read the whole report.

Lesson learnt:

1. Possibly his staff might not had update him on this issue, instead they sweep the problem under the carpet hoping the issue will never explode and forgotten by people after a while.

2. Possibly he know about the issue but he has no urgency to solve it. Then the issue was put aside and who knows, somebody poor guy died not at the good time and lead to the by election and this has become a important thing to look at.

3. In 1Malaysia, general election is not as important at by-election. So next round when you vote, try selecting the candidate that have a look that going to heaven anytime soon.

I just learnt a new Hokkien sentence from the dictionary (yes, there is such person who studied and produced a dictionary to teach you hokkien):

So to practice the usage of it, it may sound like: “Datuk, kan ni na bu chao chee bye, today only you said you surprise with the issue ah? Have you been sleeping all this while? Are we paying you for sleeping? kana sai!!”.

A Letter from USA

A friend forwarded this to me via email. Agree or not? It’s up to you. But I do feel it worth rethink. Where are we now and where are we heading to? It’s brand new year for Lunar calendar. As all we hope, happiness and prosperity awaits us in the future. Happy Asian Lunar New Year.

A Malaysian diaspora speaks up…. 

I am a female Chinese Malaysian, living in the Washington DC area in the United States . I have read many of the letters that often talk about foreign countries when the writers have no real knowledge of actually living in those countries.
Many draw conclusions about what those countries are like after hearing it from someone else or by reading and hearing about them in the media or after four years in a college town in those countries.
I finished STPM with outstanding results from the prestigious St George’s Girls School in Penang . Did I get a university place from the Malaysian government? Nothing.. With near perfect scores, I had nothing, while my Malay friends were getting offers to go overseas.
Even those with 2As got into university. I was so depressed. I was my parent’s last hope for getting the family out of poverty and at 18, I thought I had failed my parents.
Today, I understand it was the Malaysian Government that had failed me and my family because of its iscriminatory policies.
Fortunately, I did not give up and immediately did research at the Malaysian American Commission on Education Exchange (MACEE) to find a university in the US that would accept me and provide all the finances. My family and 
friends thought I was crazy, being the youngest of nine children of a very poor carpenter. Anything that required a fee was out of our reach.
Based on merit and my extracurricular activities of community service in secondary school, I received full tuition scholarship, work study, and grants to cover the four years at a highly competitive US university.
Often, I took 21 credits each semester, 15 credits each term while working 20 hours each week and maintaining a 3.5 CGPA. A couple of semesters, I also received division scholarships and worked as a TA (teaching assistant) on top of everything else.
For the work study, I worked as a custodian (yes, cleaning toilets), carpet layer, computer lab assistant, grounds keeping, librarian, painter, tour guide, etc. If you understand the US credit system, you will understand this is a heavy load.
Why did I do it? This is because I learnt as a young child from my parents that hard work is an opportunity, to give my best in everything, and to take pride in the work I do. I walked away with a double major and a minor with honours but most of all a great lesson in humility and a great respect for those who are forced to labour in so-called `blue collar’ positions.
Those of you who think you know all about Australia , US, or the West, think again. Unless you have really lived in these countries, i.e. paid a mortgage, paid taxes, taken part in elections, you do not understand the level of commitment and hard work it takes to be successful in these countries, not just for immigrants but for people who have lived here for generations.
These people are where they are today because of hard work. (Of course, I am not saying everyone in the US is hardworking… There is always the lazy lot which lives off of someone else’s hard work. Fortunately, they are the 
minority..)
Every single person, anywhere, should have the opportunity to succeed if they want to put in the effort and be accountable for their own actions. In the end, they should be able to reap what they sow.
It is bearable that opportunities are limited depending on how well-off financially one’s family is but when higher education opportunities are race-based, like it is in Malaysia ; it is downright cruel for those who see education as the only way out of poverty.
If you want to say discrimination is here in the US , yes, of course it is.  Can you name a country where it doesn’t happen? But let me tell you one thing – if you go looking for it, you will find it.
But in Malaysia , you don’t have to go look for it because it seeks you out, slaps you in your face every which way you turn, and is sanctioned by law!
Here in the US , my children have the same opportunity to go to school and learn just like their black, white, and immigrant friends. At school, they eat the same food, play the same games, are taught the same classes and when they are 18, they will still have the same opportunities. would I want to bring my children back to Malaysia ?
So they can suffer the state-sanctioned discrimination as the non-malays have for over 50 years?
The injustice the non-Malay have to suffer in frightening silence is the most damaging problem one has to face throughout one’s life. You just have to look at the mighty govt structures which completely favours only one race, the Umno Malay.
The Chinese and Indians are treated no better than the illegal Indonesians.
Racism and corruption are openly practised by the Malay politicians everywhere, Courts, schools/Uni, police, govt offices, contracts, GLC, NEP, ISA, local govt.
It’s so powerful and intimidating that you walk with fear and keep your mouth shut on anything and everything political.
Religion is taboo unless you talk good about Islam.
As for being a slave in the foreign country, I am a happy ‘slave’ earning a good income as an IT project manager.
I work five days a week; can talk bad about the president when I want to; argue about politics, race and religion openly; gather with more than 50 friends and family when I want (no permit needed) and I don’t worry about the police pulling me over because they say I ran the light when I didn’t.
Have we seen the light at the end of the tunnel yet (Anwar Ibrahim)?
Or is it the head light of an oncoming Umno train ?
Lets hope its the former for the sake of all fair minded Malaysians.
The dream of a Malaysian ‘race’ in the future is nowhere in sight with the present BN govt.
Where is Negara-Ku???