Najib: “Crony-capitalist” Dr M neglected EPF, opposed minimum wage
FORMER Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak fired a salvo against his mentor-nemesis, Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad after a netizen praised the former for disallowing withdrawals from the Employees Provident Fund (EPF) during his tenure, even during an economic meltdown.
“I want people to understand that Dr Mahathir and I have different views when it comes EPF’s dividend to its contributors and wages for Malaysian workers, and both are related to one another,” he said, in a Facebook post.
Elaborating, Najib claimed that Dr Mahathir favoured his cronies and the capitalists, adding the latter was against workers getting higher salaries in order to attract foreign direct investment (FDI).
“That is why he opposed my move to introduce the Minimum Wage Consultative Council Act 2011. During his tenure, workers’ pay hike was slow and even stunted at times.
As a result, Malaysian workers had little savings in the EPF as they were earning low salaries for years, he mentioned.
Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s Facebook post
“But I was of the opinion that there no point attracting FDIs at the expense of keeping wages low, which will widen the gap between the rich and poor.
“Besides, can someone tell me which country in the world aspires to become a high-income nation by keeping its workers’ salaries low?” he queried.
EPF grew profitable in the last nine years
With that, Najib said that using the National Transformation Plan, he aimed at attracting foreign investors who were willing to offer fair wages to the people.
As a result, not only Malaysia managed to attract FDI but also increased salaries for workers, absolute poverty rate was reduced within nine years of his administration and recorded better figures under the gross national income (GNI), indicating the gap between the rich and poor was being narrowed.
“But our GNI figures went up again during Pakatan Harapan’s (PH) administration because Dr Mahathir abolished the Goods and Services tax (GST) and reduced aid under the Bantuan Rakyat 1Malaysia (BR1M) scheme,” Najib claimed.
Touching on the EPF, Najib said that Dr Mahathir did not give much opportunity to the pensions fund to make profits but preferred to use its funds to bailout his failed projects.
With that, EPF was unable to provide good dividends to its contributors from 1997 until 2003, which was the lowest at 4.5%.
“During my time, I came up with plans to allow EPF to offer better dividends to its contributors. One of it was for it to purchase 49% of PLUS Malaysia Bhd shares.
“I also allowed a land owned by the Nation Rubber Board to be sold directly to the EPF, which was turned into the multi-billion-ringgit Kwasa Damansara development project.
“EPF also got involved in the Battersea England project, which is worth billions,” Najib stated.
With EPF being financially viable, this gave him the confidence to push the Government to allow withdrawals by contributors who were badly affected by the pandemic.
“It’s because I have confidence that EPF can make profits again the future, as how it managed to become a company worth RM850 bil from RM300 within nine years,” the Pekan MP remarked. – July 6, 2021.
“But I was of the opinion that there no point attracting FDIs at the expense of keeping wages low, which will widen the gap between the rich and poor.
“Besides, can someone tell me which country in the world aspires to become a high-income nation by keeping its workers’ salaries low?” he queried.
EPF grew profitable in the last nine years
With that, Najib said that using the National Transformation Plan, he aimed at attracting foreign investors who were willing to offer fair wages to the people.
As a result, not only Malaysia managed to attract FDI but also increased salaries for workers, absolute poverty rate was reduced within nine years of his administration and recorded better figures under the gross national income (GNI), indicating the gap between the rich and poor was being narrowed.
“But our GNI figures went up again during Pakatan Harapan’s (PH) administration because Dr Mahathir abolished the Goods and Services tax (GST) and reduced aid under the Bantuan Rakyat 1Malaysia (BR1M) scheme,” Najib claimed.
Touching on the EPF, Najib said that Dr Mahathir did not give much opportunity to the pensions fund to make profits but preferred to use its funds to bailout his failed projects.
With that, EPF was unable to provide good dividends to its contributors from 1997 until 2003, which was the lowest at 4.5%.
“During my time, I came up with plans to allow EPF to offer better dividends to its contributors. One of it was for it to purchase 49% of PLUS Malaysia Bhd shares.
“I also allowed a land owned by the Nation Rubber Board to be sold directly to the EPF, which was turned into the multi-billion-ringgit Kwasa Damansara development project.
“EPF also got involved in the Battersea England project, which is worth billions,” Najib stated.
With EPF being financially viable, this gave him the confidence to push the Government to allow withdrawals by contributors who were badly affected by the pandemic.
“It’s because I have confidence that EPF can make profits again the future, as how it managed to become a company worth RM850 bil from RM300 within nine years,” the Pekan MP remarked. – July 6, 2021.
No country ever got rich through Minimum Wage Laws. That is a stupid understanding of economics.
ReplyDeleteA country accumulates wealth through productivity gains.
The Minimum Wage Law was and continues to be a major disincentive to the creation of new jobs.
Employers will think two times, three times before creating any new entry-level positions, because the law prevents flexibility to match job requirements to the worker.
Flowery talk of a true bloodsucking capitalist!
DeleteW/O minimum wage, the workers r open to exploitations by the employers.
"Employers will think two times, three times before creating any new entry-level positions, because the law prevents flexibility to match job requirements to the worker."
Even in the face of increasing production requirement?
U r indeed a true follower of Parkinson's law in management. Stay put with yr inherited heirloom - it wouldn't last!
Najib used KWAP - the Government employees Pension Fund as his personal piggy bank, and Billions have disappeared.
ReplyDeleteToonsie neglected EPF, Jibby hilangkan 4B duit KWAP......
ReplyDeleteBTW Battersea suffered huge cost overruns due to asbestos removal issues and SP Setia needed a bailout from EPF and Sime Darby, using our money of course....
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Higher Battersea cost due to building envelope
SAMANTHA HO & EMIR ZAINUL
August 18, 2017
KUALA LUMPUR (Aug 18): S P Setia Bhd has confirmed that the second phase of the Battersea Power Station project in London has seen rising construction costs due to a push-up for the building envelope, changes in design and inflation.
The building envelope is the separator between the interior and exterior of a building. Its typical components include walls, floors, roofs, the fenestration and doors.
“To mitigate some of the cost increases, we have changed the procurement strategy from a design-and-build contract to a construction management contract in both the second and third phases,” said Datuk Wong Tuck Wai, deputy president and chief operating officer of S P Setia.
Speaking at a media briefing on the release of the property developer’s second-quarter financial results yesterday, he added that S P Setia, together with Sime Darby Bhd and the Employees Provident Fund as the consortium that owns the project, is also looking at value engineering to keep costs down.
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Jibby diam diam about his disastrous FGV IPO in 2012, putting hundreds of thousands of settlers in debt, now Mahiaddin has no choice but to write off 80% of their debt, at taxpayer's expense of course, because election coming, need Felda votes.
ReplyDeleteQUOTE
Muhyiddin: Govt agrees to write off RM8.3b of Felda settlers’ loans to reduce 80pc of their burden
Wednesday, 07 Jul 2021
KUALA LUMPUR, July 7 — The government has agreed in principle to dispose of part of the Federal Land Development Authority (Felda) settlers’ loans amounting to RM8.3 billion as an initiative to revive the 65-year-old organisation.
Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin said the disposal of the loans which would be implemented through a conditional loan adjustment initiative would reduce the loan burden of each settler by an average of 80 per cent.
“The average loan repayment is expected to be reduced from around RM800 to RM1,000 to only RM250 to RM300 a month for oil palm settlers and as low as RM150 for rubber settlers, which is a very reasonable and affordable rate for them.”
He said this in a pre-recorded speech broadcast live on television and online platforms in conjunction with the Settlers’ Day celebration today.
Muhyiddin said the initiative was one of the three-pronged strategies — Restart, Revitalise and Reform — to bring back the glory of Felda as the world’s leading plantation company and eventually to be listed as among successful global companies, such as in the Fortune Global 500.
Elaborating, Muhyiddin said the conditional loan disposal includes a partial adjustment of the replanting loan balance as of December 31, 2019, amounting to RM8 billion which would benefit 92,441 settlers or 82 per cent of the total 112,638 settlers.
Apart from that, he said the partial adjustment of the balance of fertilizer loan arrears up to the same period amounting to RM168 million would involve 52,180 settlers and the full adjustment of the balance of the original development loan also for the same period amounting to RM56 million would involve 6,711 settlers.
It also involves a full adjustment of the loan balance of FGV Holdings Bhd shares up to July 7 worth RM78 million involving 38,043 settlers, he said.
According to Muhyiddin, this initiative was taken as the issue of these loans, which had been plaguing the settlers’ next of kin for so long, has been identified as one of the issues that can hamper Felda’s efforts to get back on par with the world’s leading plantation companies.
“The issues of these loans should be settled first to ease the process to restart Felda,” he said. — Bernama
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