Was Malaya better under British rule?

Uncle Koon’s short comment: Was Malaya better under British rule?

By Koon Yew Yin



MALAYA was one of the 57 former colonies of the British Empire. Was Malaya which achieved its independence on Aug 31, 1957 better economically under the British rule?

I have written two books namely Malaysia: Road Map to achieving Vision 2020 and New Road Map to a Developed Nation.

Now I am writing this short comment. I hope more people especially our politicians will read it and take appropriate action to improve our performance.

At one time, Malaysia was one of the richest nations in Southeast Asia.

Based on gross development product (GDP) per capita, Malaysia was one of the richest nations in the world because Malaysia was the biggest producer of tin, rubber and palm oil.

Moreover, we have petroleum and our population is relatively small. Yet, we could not be classified as a developed nation.

In 1970 before the introduction of the New Economic Policy (NEP), our GDP per capita was about the same as Singapore, Taiwan and South Korea.

After 51 years, Singapore, Taiwan and South Korea’s GDP per capita is four times, three times and 2.5 times Malaysia’s respectively. Moreover, all these countries – Singapore, Taiwan and South Korea – have graduated into developed nations.

They do not even have timber to build their houses.

Meritocracy

The biggest culprit for our downfall is that our Government did not practice meritocracy in the employment, promotion of civil servants and entrance to universities.

Our Government must select the best students to enter universities and employ the best people to manage the country.

Managing the country is like managing hundreds of business operation in every town and city. Good managers produce good result and likewise, bad managers produce bad result.

If our Government practiced meritocracy, there would not be so much of corruption.

I have just Googled “Number of civil servants in Malaysia” and this was the outcome: “1.71 million civil servants on government payroll as of March 2019”.



We have 1.71 million civil servants for 32 million people. We have one civil servant for every 18 people.

By comparison, UK which has a population of 67.22 million people has 2.1 million civil servants or one civil servant for every 32 people.

In short do we need so many civil servants, government-linked companies (GLCs) and ministries? – Oct 4, 2021